or
?O2.1f
ARCHITECTURAL AND PICTURESQUE
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF TUX
CATHEDRAL CHURCHES
01
If n Q! a nti antr W lal rs ;
TH» DRAWIXOB MADE FKOM SEXTCHE8 TAKEN XXFKE88LT FOB TTIIt WORK. \
(
W 1T11
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNTS.
JIclu HUitfon.
WITH THE ADDITION OF THE MANCHESTER CATHEDRA &.
VOLUME II.
Uontoon : W. KENT & CO. (LATE D. BOGUE), 86 FLEET STREET.
MDCCOLX.
LONDOKt
TMOMA* BABIILD, ^^f?*" **• »LI«T ITBB1T.
INDEX
TO Tiii- ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
VOLUME IL South Entrance to Lincoln Cathedral • • ; frontispiece.
ILincoln
HOB
View of the "West Front .... 1
- - South- West Angle ....... 8
View of South Transept and Central Tower 0
South-East. View .,...,. , . 12 View in thp Nave . . , t t .
Choir, looking West . . . ...... 17
The Chancel .......... IS
Bishop Longland's Monument ....... 20
Ground Plan .......... 20
OCatfjrfcrnl.
West Front, with the Bell Tower . . r , . . 2ti South Transept . . . . . , . . .30
South-East View ....... . , 31
Nave, looking East '....... f , 32
View in the Presbytery ...... . . 35
Northern Aisle .......... 30
Ground Plan .......... 38
South-East View from Barway Bank . . . . • f 41
West Front J ........ f 47
The East End . J . . j •
North- West View . . . •. . . . ; . .
The Galilee Porch . . . • ..... 0.')
The Nave . . . . . . . . . f r 51
The Octagon 1[ '. . '. '. • 1 . . .57
The Choir . .' .' .' .* .' V ... 59
The Lady Chapel '• "• . • • • • • • <'l
Ground Plan ..•«..•«•• I'l
INDEX.
}3ctcrl)oiougl)
PAOB
West Front .......... 72
North-East View ......... 74
View of the Porch, West End ...... : 75
View acroM the North Transept ...... 77
The Nare ........... 77
The Lady Chapel ...».,«.. 8ft ?Sr
Ground Plan .......... 82 ?sr
View from the East nill ........ 85
West Front ......... 86
South-East View ......... 88
View across the Nave ...... 91
East End of the Choir ..... ; . . 93
Ground Plan .......... 94
Kutranco to the Cloisters ........ 94
South West View ......... 97
Writ Front .......... 101
North-East View ......... 104
The Southern Tower ......... 105
View from the Bishop's Garden ..... • • 10G
The Nave looking West ....... . 107
The Bishop's Throne ......... 109
Bishop Stafford's Monument ...... .111
The Chapter Boom ........ .113
Ground Plan .......... 113
•JLJiistol CatljcUral.
North-East View ...... ; ; . 125
The North Aisle ........ . 120
Ante-Choir .......... 126
Chapter House .......... 127
Ground Plan ......... . 128
Ox fort
North-Wett View . ...... . . 136
North Aisle of Choir ....... • . • 137
The Choir . . ....... » . 137
Ground Plan •••••«••,» V7
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
TO THE
SECOND VOLUME.
FOR the difference observable in the historical and descriptive accounts of the Cathedrals in the first and second volume of this work, the reader may perhaps desire some explanation. They are the production of two different editors. The editor of the first volume having declined at the close of it to proceed, another was sought, and obtained, who consented to undertake the task, with- out any remuneration, except the task itself, which has been the means of his passing a solitary hour or two of many evenings in the most agreeable manner. The editor of the present volume how- ever was not constrained to pursue the same course as his prede- cessor, either in respect to the information or in its arrangement, and it is in these particulars that the difference will be found chiefly to reside. If the information contained in the prcscn volume be not so full in some particulars as in the former, it is extended over a wider field, comprising topics not touched upon by the first editor, and which will be highly interesting to some, and more especially to the clerical reader. The arrangement is the same in every case, and has been laid down with a view to give the clearest idea possible of the subject in hand.
In the historical and descriptive account of the Cathedrals in the present volume, the arrangement adopted is simply this : it sets out with the origin of the see, then proceeds to give some account of the Cathedrals which have preceded the present, and which are delineated in this work ; then the times when, and the benefactors by whom the present and all former Cathedrals were erected : the appearance of each one of the present Cathedrals at a distance, their situations ; a particular description and critical examination of every portion of these edifices, first externally, beginning with the west front, and next internally, noticing every peculiarity, every beauty, and every defect in the architecture, the most calamitous accidents which have rendered any very important restoration*
Tl PREFACE.
necessary ; and concludes this part of the subject with a descrip- tion of the most remarkable monuments both ancient and modern.
To this information is added an account of the present establish- ments in each Cathedral, the value of the bishoprics in the king's books, the present actual value as returned by the present prelates to the Church Commissioners, the former and present extent of the dioceses as settled by the late Act, and concludes with brief biographical sketches of the most eminent prelates who have filled the several sees from their first erection to the present times.
If the qualification of the editor of this volume for the work he has thus gratuitously undertaken be inquired into, his answer is first, the study of the subjects contained in it from his youth; secondly, an attentive examination of every Cathedral in the king- dom, most of which he has visited many times, and lastly, his re- tiding close to the first private library in England, if not in the world, to which he has free access at all times, and from which he has obtained that assistance in the fulfilment of his self-imposed task, without which (notwithstanding his previous study and know- ledge of the subject) he would not have dared to undertake it.
In the third and last volume of this work notice will be taken of the two new sees of Ripon and Manchester, and their Cathedral Churches; the former sec already erected and filled, the latter, although determined on, the design is not to be put into execu- tion until a vacancy shall occur in either of the sees of St. Asaph or Bangor. On the erection of the see of Ripon, that of Bristol was consolidated with Gloucester, and on the erection of Manches- ter into a bishop's see, that of Bangor will be consolidated with S t . Asaph : so that the number of prelates and dioceses will be the same as before. From this arrangement the only good that will result is, that some bishops will be a little relieved, but episcopacy receives no strength, and therefore the Church will be little if at all benefited. No one can justly accuse the present prelates of negligence or want of seal, they do as much as in them lies, but they have the disheartening consciousness continually before them, that the work is more than they can do. What can a bishop know of his clergy by seeing them once in three years, and than only for a few hours, while he delivers his charge to in the church, and dines with them afterwards at an ion ?
PREFACE. Til
or what can he know of their flocks, or what connexion with, or what interest in their bishop can they feel, whom if they see at all, it is but once in their whole lives for afew minutes at their confirmation? Then again, for the purpose of confirming, the bishop can only go to a few of the largest towns in his diocese, and the inhabitants of the villages around are obliged to meet him from a distance of eight, ten, or even twelve miles, which to the poor is often so very inconvenient that their confirmation is in consequence altogether neglected. But the collecting a great number of young persons together of both sexes in a large town is of itself very objectionable. The noise, the bustle, the gaiety, and above all the dinner which is given after confirma- tion to the poorer sort at a public house, tend greatly to do away with the solemnity of the occasion, and to dissipate all the serious impressions which the rite of confirmation itself, aided by the pre- vious preparation for it by the parochial clergy, may have produced. Often it happens that a bishop from age or infirmity is unable to visit his diocese at all ; it is true in such a case some one of his brethren will be found to do this service for him, but the substi- tuted bishop comes with no knowledge of the diocese, and must deprive his own the while both of his presence and his services. All these inconveniences, not to say evils, can only be remedied by the appointment of more bishops. Why should not every bishop have a coadjutator, or at least such of them as are either by reason of their age or their infirmities incapacitated from doing their duty ? under these circumstances visitations and con- firmations might be held more frequently, and not only in the larger towns, but in most of the villages also, and then no candi- dates for confirmation would be drawn more than two or three miles from home, and after the ceremony might immediately return to their families. But how, it may be asked, are these coadjutant bishops to be maintained ? the answer is, let the richer prebendal stalls, as many as may be necessary for the purpose, be given up to this object; for as it is not supposed that these additional bishops would have seats in parliament, their incomes need not be so large as the incomes of their brethren, who have, and who, it is hoped, will continue to possess that privilege so necessary to the well being, if not to the existence of the present establishment in church and state. For the removal of all existing abuses, however, in every
\iii PKEPACE.
department both of church and state, and for the remedy of the most glaring defects, much has been done of late years, much is still doing, but much also remains to be done. It is with the greatest gratitude to the Author of all good, and with the greatest joy on England's account, that every lover of his country must observe the vast exertions which are now everywhere made to provide religious instruction and pastoral care for our enormously increased population.
With regard to the episcopal revenues, too much cannot be said in praise of the more equal distribution of them among the prelates which is now in progress. This arrangement will in time super- sede the necessity of bishops holding any other preferments in commcmlam, a measure fraught with many evil consequences : and will also make translations much less frequent, which are now ac- knowledged on all hands to be attended with as many and even greater evils than commcndams. At the Reformation all these defects were seen and lamented, but the reformers of the sixteenth century very properly applied themselves to the uprooting of the worst and most dangerous abuses : and were contented for that time if they could by any justifiable means, correct the errors that had crept into the faith of the church, errors which, like cankers, were eating into the very vitals of Christianity : but it is left to the reformers of the nineteenth century to set the rest in order, and so complete the work of their predecessors, of blessed memory, whose cruel sufferings and death for the truth's sake, have proved to the whole Christian world beyond dispute, that one error at least had crept into the church, and that a truly anti-christian one, the error of PERSECUTION. That Jews and Heathens should both perse- cute Christians, as we know they did in the early ages of the church, cannot be justly a matter of surprise; but that Christians should rise up against Christians, that the professed disciples of the same meek and merciful master, that believers in the same Lord and Saviour should actually " bite and devour one another," is in- deed a strange, a grievous, and an awful error.
•
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
THE first authentic account of any building for Christian worship at Lincoln is given by Bcdc, who says that Paulinus, a missionary from Home, and companion of Augustine, having converted the governor Blctta, or Blecca, built here, in the year 628, a church of stone, of admirable workmanship, the walls of which remained firm in his days, above a century afterwards, although the roof had been de- stroyed. It is not pretended, however, that this building enjoyed the dignity and honour of being a Cathedral Church, or that Pauli- nus was Bishop of Lincoln. His preaching was successful, but we do not find that on his departure from Lincoln he left any one there in the quality of bishop. Of his building we hear no more till the year 1088, when Remigius removed the episcopal seat from Dor- chester to Lincoln, and so became the first bishop of it. It is well known that Remigius appropriated the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene, at Lincoln, to his Cathedral, but we arc nowhere told what use he made of it, or that the church of Pauliuus was dedi- cated to that saint; and yet some have not only assumed this, but also that the building of Paulinus was, when Remigius arrived at Lincoln in 1088, near three hundred and sixty years after Bcdc's time, still so perfect and so beautiful that he only added to it ; and that when Hugh de Burgundy was elected bishop in the year 118G, and rebuilt the Cathedral on a more extended scale, after it had been injured by an earthquake, that he found some part of the west front still sufficiently sound, and retained it, the very part which Remigius had retained of the original church of Paulinus, which, say they, now forms a part of the west front of the present Cathedral. But where is the satisfactory proof of all this ? We can indeed readily excuse a Lincoln antiquary for coming to such a conclusion from such data — a conclusion so flattering to his feelings, and so much to the honour of his native city; but the impartial historian, swayed by no personal interest, and biassed by no early associations and local attachments, can see nothing in it but improbable conjecture and the amiable weakness of those who form it.
The building which Paulinus erected in the seventh century, and which was a ruin in the eighth, might very well be the wonder of both, without being that of the eleventh also, if indeed it were then
VOL. II. B
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
in existence at all The probability therefore seems to be, that, granting the church of Paulinus to have been dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene (of which,however,there is not the least proof), Bemigius made use of it for his Cathedral, in respect of its site, and such of the materials as were found to be in sufficiently good condition to be worked up again in the new building.1 About the beginning of the eleventh century the art of building revived, and before the close of it many churches, considerable for their dimensions and architecture, were raised in Germany, France, and England. Accordingly we read that the Cathedral of Remigius was no mean edifice. The plan of it, according to Lcland and others, was that of a double cross, or a nave and choir with two transepts, one in the usual place, and another of less dimensions, but parallel to it, and to the eastward of it, which is the plan of the present Cathedral. At the west end were two towers, and a central one at the intersection of the greater transept with the nave and choir. From the west front, which had three circular arched doors, to the greater transept, were eight circula* arches, supported by cylindrical columns of vast thickness, and sur- mounted by a corresponding tier of circular-headed windows ; about the middle of the wall above the arches was a passage leading to the windows all round the church, and a communication between the central and western towers. On the eastern side of the greater transept were six arches, within each of which was a chapel dedicated to some saint. From the greater to the east side of the less transept were five arches, cast of these was only one arch on each side, after which the north and south aisles formed a semicircular junction, at the east end of the Cathedral behind the great altar. Of this building there can be no doubt that some portions yet remain, and form a part of the present Cathedral, viz., the middle part of the west front as high as the row of intersecting circular arches with their columns, and the western towers as far as the bottom of the great windows in the upper story of them ; and this is all.
Lincolnshire was part of the kingdom of Mercia, and in the time of Paulinus subject to a pagan monarch, but afterwards came within 'he jurisdiction of the bishops of Mercia. No episcopal seat, how ever, was established in the counly of Lincoln till 678, when the
Btdnby •ayt, and with moro reMon, tint in the present church of St. Paul, at i of UM orifittl cfcvch of PauiioiM may yet bo MM.
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 8
province of Lindsey, being wrested from Mercia by Egfrid, king of Northumberland, was by him made a separate diocese, and the seat of the bishop fixed at Sidnacester, a place known now only by name, and respecting the site of which antiquaries are much divided in opinion.* Dorchester, eight miles from Oxford, was the see of a bishop before Sidnacester. Birinus, a missionary sent by Pope Honorius, to convert the West Saxons, succeeded so well as to in- duce King Kinigils to appoint him bishop of the province, and he fixed upon Dorchester for the episcopal seat, and became the first bishop of it in the year 636. One year after Sidnacester, Leicester also was erected into a bishop's see. Eadhed is recorded as having been the first bishop of the former, and Totta of the latter see. Nine bishops in succession sat at Sidnacester ; after which it wai united to Dorchester, under Leovinus, the tenth bishop of it. Eight bishops of Leicester are enumerated by early writers ; after which that see was also united to Dorchester, which continued to be the episcopal seat of this extensive diocese, till it was transferred to Lincoln by Remigius, in the year 1088, who was therefore the last bishop of Dorchester, and the first of Lincoln.
Remigius was a monk of Fcscamp in Normandy, and is supposed to have been a native of Italy. He followed the fortunes of William, Duke of Normandy, to England, who rewarded him for his faithful services with the bishopric of Dorchester, having first deposed Alexander, the bishop at that time, who strenuously opposed the innovations of the Norman conqueror. Remigius was a man of great natural talent, energy, and resolution, as his successful contest with the Archbishop of York, who endeavoured to prevent the episcopal scat being fixed at Lincoln, by claiming Lindsey as a part \f his diocese, will sufficiently prove.
Immediately on his succession to the sec of Dorchester, Remigius began to rebuild his Cathedral Church in that place, but considering it improper that the see of so extensive and important a diocese should remain in an obscure town on the borders of it, and authorised by a decree passed in the Synod of London, in 1075, for the removal of sees from small villages and defenceless towns to placcsof importance and strength, he determined to transfer his see to the city of Lincoln,
1 The greater number of antiquaries believe Stow, * Tillage a fcw mile* &vm Lu> cola, to b« the site of the ancient SiduaccsUsr.
4 IIXCOLN CATHEDRAL.
at that time a very nourishing place, and u here the castle, thru erecting, promised that protection to devotees which the unsettled state of the times rendered necessary. It may be well to observe in this place, that hitherto the erection, suppression, or translation of sees were all acts entirely independent of any foreign power, of any mandate from the Bishop of Rome, or any spiritual supremacy what- ever; they were effected either by permission or order of the lawful sovereign, or by decrees of synods, consisting of the ecclesiastics of the nation, lawfully assembled to direct the affairs of the national church, and to promote the interests of the Christian religion.
To return to the subject, land was purchased on the summit of Lincoln hill for the site of the Cathedral, but the precise time when the foundations of it were laid is uncertain, probably soon after the synod of 1075 ; but it is well known that it was nearly finished in the year 1002, when Ilcmigius, feeling himself near his end, invited all the prelates of the realm to assist at its consecration and solemn dedication to the Ever-blessed Virgin, which was to take place on the 9th of May. Robert, Bishop of Hereford, was the only one who refused the invitation, and excused himself by saying he fore- saw the Cathedral could not be dedicated in the lifetime of Remigius. In those days astrology was much studied, and its predictions relied on as prophetic truths, and ia this instance there happened a remarkable coincidence between the prediction and the fact, for Rcmigius died on the 8th of May, 1092, the day before that which was fixed for the ceremony.
Robert Bloet, the second bishop of Lincoln, and immediate suc- cessor of Remigius, completed and dedicated the Cathedral in the same year; but in the year 1124 it was greatly injured by an accidental fire. Alexander, the third bishop, repaired it. He possessed, in common with his uncle Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, and his brother Nigcllus, Bishop of Ely, a remarkable love and taste for architecture. He is said to have vaulted the Cathedral with stone and to have improved it in many other respects, so that it became equal, if not superior, to any church at that time in England.
The next great benefactor to this Cathedral was the famous Hugh do Grenoble, called also the Burgundian, the sixth bishop of Lincoln, who rebuilt much of the present fabric between the years 1 186 and 1200, a circumstance which may seem extraordinary*
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 5
considering the usual solidity of Norman architecture, and that the original building, then so recently repaired and beautified by Bishop Alexander, was scarcely a century old.
Some have supposed, that the placing a stone vaulting on walls which were intended only to support a roof of timber had so injured them as to make it necessary to rebuild the greater partof the church; but an historian of the times, Benedict, Abbot of Peterborough, accounts for it in another and much more probable way : he informs us that the church was cleft from top to bottom by an earthquake, which happened in the year 1185, the year before Bishop Hugh's advancement to the sec ; in all likelihood, however, much more was done than was at all necessary, from the great love of magnificence in architecture which then everywhere prevailed, and of the pointed style, which was about this time first introduced into England from other countries, or, as some will have it, gradually and naturally rose here, as elsewhere, from the style which immediately preceded it.
However this may be, it is certain Bishop Hugh took down at least one-half of the Cathedral, and built the present east transept, with its chapels, the whole of the choir, chapter-house, and cast side of the west transept, with part of the additions to the original west front, as is sufficiently evident from the style of these portions of the Cathedral as it exists at present, without appealing to history, which, however, affirms the same thing.
In the year 1791, when the choir was newpavcd,itwas discovered that Bishop Hugh's church extended no farther to the east than where the altar now stands, and that it terminated in a half hexagon.
There is reason to believe that the west wall of the greater tran- sept, as high as the second tier of windows, was also erected by him.
The galilee porch was certainly built after the wail to which it is attached, as may be plainly seen in the room above it; it is therefore probable that this transept was erecting at the time ol Bishop Hugh's death, and finished, with the galilee porch, soon afterwards. The nave also, and the rest of the great west front, are considered, with good reason, to have been built about the same time by Bishop Hugh de Wells, who sat in this see from 1209 to 1235, and was certainly a wealthy and liberal prelate.
In the last-mentioned year the Cathedral was much injured by the fall of great part of the central tower, then newly erected. The
<; LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
famous Bishop Grosteste repaired the Cathedral, and rebuilt tho tower as far as the first story above the roof.
The eastern part of the Cathedral, beyond the upper transept, was begun in tbe year 1306, as some say, while others, with less reason, declare it to be half a century earlier. There seems to be in most antiquaries a feverish, restless desire to assign to buildings an earlier date than can be satisfactorily proved ; which has caused them oftentimes to overstep the bounds of probability, and make light of or overlook some stubborn truth which would drive them to a more recent date. Now it is agreed on all sides that tho upper part of the great tower, the style of which corresponds exactly with that of the eastern part of the Cathedral, was begun in 1306, and when we add to this, that the architects of tho middle ages paid no attention to the designs of their predecessors, we cannot but con- clude that these two portions of the Cathedral are of the same date. The building of the cloisters must, for the same reason, have been going on at the same time. The upper story of each of the western towers are both of a much lower date ; but when they were built is not exactly known from any authentic document. Both these towers and the central one had upon them spires of wood, covered with lead ; that on the latter was blown down in 1547, probably soon after it was placed there ; and those on tho former were very judiciously taken down in 1808.
The upper part of the south end of the greater transept, the stalls of the choir, and the statues and windows above the west entrances, may be safely dated at the close of the fourteenth cen- tury, as may also the upper story of the western towers.
The pinnacles above the buttresses, on the west side of the great transept, and on the south side of the nave, were the last material additions to this Cathedral, except sepulchral monuments and chantries, which continued to be erected till the Reformation, when, and during the civil wars, this, in common with all other cathedral abbey, priory, and collegiate churches, was robbed of its costly vessels, shrines, and other furniture, its statues and painted glass were destroyed or mutilated, and its walls defaced and injured.
Before we proceed to a more particular description of the present Cathedral of Lincoln, we must not omit to take notice of a very curious stone arch, which is to be seen a little above the stone
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 7
vaulting within the timber roof of their nave, and which connect* the western towers at their base, i. e., the base of them just at the point where they rise above the west front. It is supposed to have been constructed at the time the upper part of the towers was added, to ascertain, as they were in progress, whether so great an additional weight could be safely set upon the original part of them. This arch (though indeed it can scarcely be called one) is twenty-eight feet long, and rises about nine inches ; the stones of which it is com- posed arc therefore nearly vertical ; they are twenty-one inches ^hick, chamfered on the under edges, and on an average about sixteen inches wide, and do not appear to be tenanted together ; their upper surface is flat, and the centre or key stone is eleven inches deep.1 The chord of the arc is not horizontal, but is about thirteen inches lower on the north side than on the south, and hence arises its liability to be affected by a very trifling settlement at either end, and indeed such is the extreme delicacy of its construction, that it vibrates very sensibly when only stamped on by the foot ; irr appearance it is more like a wooden beam than a stone arch.
In the north tower was hung the famous bell, commonly called the Great Tom of Lincoln, which was six feet three inches and a half in diameter at the mouth, and weighed four tons eight hundred weight. It was cast at Lincoln in the year 1G10.4
The situation of Lincoln Cathedral is most commanding, and the first view of it from any point, however distant, most imposing : it stands on a lofty eminence, surrounded by an immense extent of level country. It looks down not only upon the modern city at the base, and creeping up the side of the hill, but also upon a great part of this still too-extensive diocese.
At a distance, the two great defects of this Cathedral, its want of elevation in the body, audits enormously high-pitched timber roof, are not so apparent, and rather serve to correct each other, as a great part of the latter may be very well supposed to be the
» Sco Mr. "Ware's Tract on Vaults and Bridget. Tract i. PI. 9.
* ThU bell bccamo cracked in December. 1827, was broken up in June, 1814, an<\ with Biz other bells from the Rood Tower, called the " Lady Bells," recast into tbo present bell and two quarter bells. Tho now boll weighs ono ton more, and is scren inches larger in diameter than the old one ; iU key is A. ; that of theold one was B. It was founded by Mr. Thomaa Mean, of Whitechapel Road, London, Norembcr, 18*4, and placed in tho Rood Tower of Lincoln, April, 1S35.
8 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
body of the church. We say not so apparent, but even at a dis- tance the eye would be better pleased with a much greater elevation in the body than the ridge of the roof appears to give it. On a nearer approach, the attention, though caught by many architec- tural beauties, is continually distracted by these two very obvious defects. We should like much to sec the walls of the nave, choir, and transepts raised to about the middle of the lower story of the towers, and the point of the timber roof to the commencement of the tipper story of them. The towers would want no more elevation in consequence, but, on the contrary, there would be a better propor- tion between the body of the Cathedral and its towers than there is at present Having gained the summit of Lincoln Hill, let us walk round the superb edifice which crowns it, and take a more particular survey of its
EXTERIOR.
Of the beauty of the west front much has been said, but the plain solid work of Remigius is injurious to the general effect That it should have been allowed to remain in its orignal state, when the additional portion was built, is quite astonishing, when we consider the great desire there was at that time to adopt everywhere the pointed style of architecture ; and however interesting it may still be to the antiquary and the architect, we cannot avoid expressing ft With that the elegant rows of pointed arches, with their slender columns, were continued over the face of the front of Remigius, and that the lateral semicircular recesses of his work were made to correspond with the central one, which was increased in height and pointed when the facade was enlarged, as it now appears; flanked by octagonal turrets, rising a little above the straight-topped and ornamented parapet, and finished with spires. The gable of the nave is very much enriched, and is set upon the parapet between tl»t tower*.
We will now continue onr walk by the south side of the Cathe- dral ; the first object we meet with on turning round the south-west turret, is a building in front of the side aisle of the nave, and of the •ame rtylc with both, internally divided into two unequal rooms, one used for lumber, the other and larger is called St. Hugh's Chapel. The side aisle has windows of one light each, highly pointed, between
•TII w» .it AVI::
ILElfCOILW
• mr««
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. &
which are buttresses very plain, alternately large and small, with high-pointed gables, rising above the ornamented parapet, to the larger of which are attached plain flying buttresses, which terminate between the windows of the clerestory, which are like those of the side aisle ; above these windows the nave is finished with an elegantly carved parapet, similar to that which runs all along the top of the west front, except where it is interrupted by the gable. This parapet of the nave is also interrupted, at regular intervals, by what may be called little shrines, which rise considerably above the parapet, with singularly good effect, since they break the heaviness of the high- pitched timber roof of the nave ; as the lofty pinnacles on the west side of the great transept do, with still better effect in respect to its roof. This transept has no side aisles to the west, but at the southern extremity of its west side is built what is called the galilee porch ; a porch, of the same name and for the same purpose,1 is placed at the west end of Ely and Durham Cathedrals : no reason has been assigned for its peculiar situation at Lincoln. The south face of this transept comes next in sight, it is flanked by double buttresses at the angles, surmounted by lofty pinnacles ; that on the west angle crocketted, the other quite plain ; it is divided into three stories, the lowest is divided into two equal parts by a plain buttress without any pinnacles, on each side of which arc two narrow, highly pointed windows of one light each ; the middle story contains a rose window, filled with good flowing tracery, so common in French and so rare in English Cathedrals, and though perhaps the best example of such a window that can be found in this country, it is not comparable to those which are so frequently to be met with in France. The gable itself, which forms the third story, contains a pointed window of five lights, the head of which is filled with tracery* as good, and not very unlike that of the rose window below it; along the bottom of the gable runs a band, adorned with quatrefoil tracery, very bold ; the sloping sides of the gable are enriched with double crocketting, the outer line of it free, which has a very good effect* The eastern side of this transept, with its side aisle, is very plain ;
• In these porches, which were formerly attached to the west end of all cathedrals and abbey churches, public penitents were stationed, dead bodies deposited before interment, and females allowed to see the monks of the conrent who were their rela- tions. At Durham, women were not allowed to attend divine senrice, except in th« galilec.
VOL. II. 0
10 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
the south face of the latter contains two highly pointed windows of one light each, with smaller ones of the same kind in the slope above, and is flanked at the eastern end by a double buttress, surmounted by a large, plain, and heavy pinnacle. The buttresses and windows of the side aisle of this transept are similar to those of the side aisle of the nave, and are connected in the same way with the clerestory above, the parapet wall of which ic quite plain, exposing the high- pitched roof, without anything to relieve it. The eastern transept, however, is so near the western, that the roof on the eastern side of the latter is not very much seen. For the same reason the western side of the eastern transept is not so visible ; and the defect of the timber roof is in both instances not so glaring. The south face of the eastern transept comes next into view ; it is flanked with double buttresses at the angles, which rise as high as the beginning of the gable, from whence very elegant octangular pinnacles rise up to a little above the point of the gable. The front is divided into four stories, the lowest similar to that of the western transept, but has only two windows of one light each; the next story has four windows of one light each, of course only half the breadth of those below, as both the one and the other fill up all the space between the flanking buttresses ; these four arc also about half the height of the other two. The third story has also four windows of one light each. The gable itself forms the fourth story, which is adorned with five highly pointed arches, supported upon slender columns. The middle arch ri-cs quite up into the gable point, and the others diminish on each side it, rising as high as the slope of the gable will allow. The clerestory of the east side of this transept is of the same style with the south face of it ; it has an ornamented parapet, but no pinnacles to conceal or break the blemish of the timber roof, which is here and on the remaining and most beautiful portionof the Cathedral (the presbytery) to be seen but too plainly. On the east side of this transept are two semicircular bays of the same style with the transept itself. We now come to the presbytery, the whole of which is a most beautiful example of the perfection of the pointed style. The buttresses, which were in the former age too plain, have their use and solidity in this imbmceof the succcediugagc disguised by ornaments,thcpcdimenta! terminations being decorated with crockets, foliage, and finials; th< angles with clusters of slender columns, and the faces with brackets
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 11
and canopies for the reception of statues. The windows, which were before of single lights, are here divided into several, by mullions and tracery of geometrical form, an invention peculiar to pointed archi- tecture, and of the highest importance, as it enabled architects to increase the size of their windows to any required extent in every respect ; in short, a degree of lightness and elegance is observable here, which was unknown in buildings of an earlier date. But that which is most of all worthy of remark in the architecture of this age is the prevalence of sculpture, together with its superiority over that of the preceding century, in regard to its design, execution, and application. In Norman architecture the few imitations of nature which are to be found, either of foliage or animals, and especially of the human form, are barbarous in the extreme.
As instances of the best sculpture of this age may be mentioned, first, the alto relievo over the south porch of the presbytery, which embodies the awful idea of the Last Judgment, given in the 25th chapter of St. Matthew, and must have been executed by a sculptor to whom the excellencies of ancient art were not unknown. Secondly, the four statues in the piers of this porch, mutilated and headless as they are, should be mentioned ; they were intended to represent the four Evangelists, and were probably the work of the same masterly hand. The statue of the Virgin and infant Saviour, which once adorned the pier which divides the porch into two doorways, has been removed. This porch is unusually deep ; its sides and arch mouldings are very much enriched with rows of statuary and strings of foliage alternately, and reminds us a little of the portals of French Cathe- drals, though greatly inferior to the best examples of them, both in dimensions and in richness of decoration. On the east side of this porch is the chapel of St. Blaise, built and endowed by Bishop Russell, who died in the year 1494 ; on the west side of the same is the chapel of St. Catherine, built and endowed by Bishop Longland, who, living to the year 1547, had the mortification of witnessing the inutility of its erection, and the transfer of its endowments to the king. These chapels are very nearly alike, and are very good examples of the style called perpendicular by Gothic architects.
We come now to the east end of the Cathedral, of the extreme beauty of which much has been said, but nothing too much. It consists of three gables, all flanked by double buttresses, whose sides
12 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
are elegantly panelled with pointed arches and slender columns, and further adorned with brackets and canopies, and whose pedimental tops arc richly crocketted and terminated by fmials. These buttresses rise as high as the beginning of the gables, and upon them are set octangular pinnacles with slender columns at each angle, supporting straight canopies, from the midst of which rise spires, which are also crocketted and terminated by finials. The middle portion of the east end is much broader and loftier than those on each side of it, which arc but the cast ends of the side aisles of the presbytery, while this is the cast end of the main body of it. The middle portion is divided into two stories, in each of which is a window of beautiful design. The larger one in the lower story occupies nearly all the space between the buttresses, and is divided into eight lights ; the head of it, which is a pointed arch, h filled with feathered circles of various diameters, beautifully disposed. The dividing mullions arc in the form of slender columns with capitals of foliage, and between the exterior columns on each side of the window arc inserted two scries of rosettes. The point of the head of this window reaches the string course under the window of the next story, which is in fact nothing more than the gable itself. This upper window is also pointed, and is as large as it could be in that place ; it is of five lights, and the head of it is occupied by one large and two smaller circles, the larger having eight trefoils placed round its inner circumference, the two smaller a single trefoil within each. All round the top of the pointed arch of this window, between the mouldings, a single series of rosettes is placed, similar to the double series in the sides of the great window below. The sloping •ides of this gable are adorned with a double row of crockets, one between the mouldings on the face of the gable, the other on the edge of the exterior moulding; the point of the gable hasa beautiful finial, out of which rises a highly-decorated cross. The side portions of this east end are nearly similar ; they have a window each in the lower story, of three lights ; the pointed heads filled with three feathered circles, and having their sides ornamented with double rows ot rosettes ; above these windows is a row of trefoiled-hcaded arches upon slender columns, and above that within the gables is panelliog, which in design is similar to the windows below. The gablw aro terminated by decorated crosses. Underneath all the windows of the lower story is placed a row of trefoiled-hcadcd arches upon bhort
h > ^ i
y \ I
H
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 13
columns, which is continued round the centre buttresses, but not round the external ones. Upon the whole there is a gay, dressy, flowery appearance about the cast end of Lincoln Cathedral, which is quite charming, and to which no words can do j ustice. It is light, graceful, and elegant in the extreme ; no fault has ever been found with it; and it seems to be agreed on all hands to instance it as a perfect example of the beautiful style to which it belongs.
Of the north side of the Cathedral very little need be said ; it is in the main very similar to the south side already described. The chief differences arc, first, that the northern porch of the presbytery is not so rich ; it has a chapel only on the cast side of it, that built and endowed by Bishop Fleming, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity; it is of perpendicular Gothic, and very similar to those already noticed on the south side. The next difference worthy to be observed is the porch and entrance in the north front of the greater transept. It projects from the face of the transept wall considerably, and has a triple pedimental canopy over it. At the north end of the eastern transept is a vestibule leading to the cloister, which is an oblong of one hundred and eighteen feet on the north and south sides, and ninety on the east and west. The north side is entirely modern, and is the work of Sir Christopher Wren, whose contempt for the pointed sJtyle induced him to be guilty of this impropriety. It consists of an arcade supported by columns of Doric proportion, and above it is a room used as the library. The other sides of the cloister are of a style subsequent to that of the presbytery, and consist of several bays, of which each contains an arch divided into four lights, and other tracery, by stone mullions. The vaulting is of wood, and some of the bosses at the intersection of the ribs are ornamented with figures, beautifully designed and excellently carved. In the middle of the cloister-court nearly, and a few feet only below the surface of the ground, a tcsselatcd pavement was discovered some years ago, which, although inferior in merit to many others that have been found in other parts of England, is a proof that the site of the present Cathedral was once occupied by the Romans.
Under the east side of the cloister is the entrance to the chapter- house. This building is a regular decagon, about sixty feet diameter within, and about forty-two in height, vaulted with stone, and has a central pillar, composed of ten reeded columns of Purbeck marble, set
14 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
round a circular pier of stone, and bound together by a fillet, which runs round them all, about midway between the base and the capital. The capitals of all the ten slender columns are composed of well- executed foliage, flowing elegantly into one another, so as to form both a distinct capital for each, and yet one whole, looking at tho pillar as a single one. From this central pillar the archesof the vault- ing arc carried to the angles of the walls, where they are supported by a cluster of columns, resting on richly-ornamented brackets.
The vestibule, leading to the chapter-house from the cloister, corresponds, on the sides, with the body of the building, and is terminated at the west end by an arcade, or triforium, over the entrance, and an unornamcntcd circular window. Externally tho wall is plain, and has three unmeaning pediments ; and as seen over the roof of the cloister, is as ugly as any architect, however un- skilful, could make it ; it is surprising that the same person who built the chapter-house, could be the author of such a design for this portion of the works.
On the outside of the chapter-house the abutment is remarkable, being formed by arches of flying buttresses, supported by massive piers far detached from the wall; the coping, ornamented with quaint-foils, is not original, nor arc the pinnacles on the smaller buttresses between tho windows, for they anciently terminated with gables, and a finial of drooping leaves, of which one example still remains at the north-west angle.
Tho roof, which had been injudiciously altered, as shown in early prints, was restored to its original form by the dean and chapter, in the year 1800. The windows in each side of the building are highly pointed, of one light each, but in pairs, two in each side, so as to have the appearance of one window ; divided down the middle with clusters of slender columns of Purbeck marble, banded together with two seta of fillets, and capitals of foliage, and interlaced with zigzag mouldings. The vaulting is simple and good, and the bosses, at the intersection of the ribs, of good design and execution.
Several chapter-houses of cathedral and collegiate churches are of a polygonal form, but this of Lincoln was probably the very first that was ever erected in England of this form ; since others, known to have been built in the twelfth century, as those of Durham, Glou- cester, Bristol, and Peterborough, were all oblong, and it bccms
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. i5
reasonable to suppose that the discontinuance of that form was sug- gested by the circular churches of the Knights Templars, ercctedat the close of the twelfth century, in imitation of that over the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem."
The Temple Church, in London, the finest remaining example yf those buildings, was dedicated in 1185, which was one year prior to St. Hugh's advancement to the see of Lincoln, and fifteen years before the completion of his chapter-house, the decagonal form of which nearly approximates to the beauty of a circle, and avoids that distortion of the arches which results from horizontal curvature.
The rose window, in the north end of the greater transept, has much less tracery in it, and is not so good a specimen of that sort of window as that in the south end of the same. The remaining portion of the north side of the Cathedral is so very similar to the corresponding portion on the south side, that no particular remark need be made upon it.
Having now walked round this magnificent pile of building, let us raise our eyes to the towers, which are the chief pride and glory of it. The western towers are each of them worthy, for their dimensions, proportions, and decorations, to be the chief or central tower of any Cathedral, or other important church ; and the central tower itself has a statelincss and dignity about it, such as can be seen in no other tower of any Cathedral of England, France, or perhaps any other country. The correct representation of these towers in the accompanying.platcs will supersede the necessity of any laboured description of them, but it ought to be noticed, that the arches in the great tower immediately above the roof were formerly open, and that the embrasures on the top were erected by Mr. Essex in 1775. The height of this tower, from the ground to the top of the embrasure, is twohundred and thirty-eight feet,the external breadth fifty. It is chiefly to this feature that the exterior of Lincoln Cathedral owes its majestic grandeur when considered as a mass, «md the picturesque combinations it presents under almost every point of view.
Being now thoroughly acquainted with the exterior, by means of the plates and the foregoing description, let us now enter the Cathedral, and take a survey of it.
• Ease* on the Origin and Antiquity of Hound Churchc*. Arch. ToLtL p. 170.
1*1 LINCOLN CATUEDUAL.
INTERIOR.
Let the reader suppose himself to enter by the middle, or principal archway, of the west front. He is then standing at the western extremity of the nave, and the eye can penetrate at once to the east window of the presbytery, which is distant from him nearly five hundred feel : a vast space is now before him, and though the effect upon the whole is dignified, and even solemn, yet it has none of that sublimity which is to be found in York Minster, of which this Cathedral is supposed to be the only rival in England.
The great and perhaps the only defect is a want of height ; the vaulting is not sufficiently elevated for the length and breadth of the Cathedral. The beholder at once exclaims " This is too low." The eye cannot be satisfied with less than five-and-twenty feet more of elevation. It is almost impossible for a church in the pointed style to be too lofty, but it may easily be too low ; this style requires a greater proportion of height to length and breadth than any other style of architecture. Bcauvais Cathedral is said to be higher than need be, but no one has ventured to call it a defect ; on the contrary every one allows it to be sublime. The vaulting of the nave of Lincoln Cathedral is somewhat higher than that of the choir and presbytery, the height of both which is again lessened by the pavement being raised above the pavement of the nave. In the length of the nave are seven pointed arches on each side, supported on eight clustered columns, six of which arc isolated, and two (one it each extremity) engaged. The two first arches westward are .narrower than the others, and more acutely pointed. The open arches, above these last named, are divided down the middle, into two ; those over all the others into three. The windows of the clerestory are all alike, viz., three in each division, side by side, of one light each, the middle one rising higher than the outer ones; except indeed that those over the two narrower arches of the nave arc of course narrower, being inserted in a less space. The vaulting of the two first, or western compartments of the nave, is much more limplc than that of all the rest, and of the nave itself. All along under the windows of the side aisles (which are of one light each, and two within each compartment), the wall is adorned with a line of
;L n wr c <D IL. w CAT
VIKW IK TIIK KAVK UO- . •• ^ •
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 17
trcfoiled-hcadea arches upon short clustered columns.1 Having walked along the nave to the eastern extremity of it, we arc brought into the greater transept, and under the central tower. The four clustered columns which support it arc regular and well-propor- tioned; they are composed of twenty-four attached columns of va- rious diameters, of which twelve are of stone and twelve of Purhcck marble; they rise to the height of forty-eight feet, and the massive arches they sustain are made to assume an air of lightness by tho number and delicacy of their mouldings, and the decoration of the spandrils with trellis-work. Above these arches are two tiers in each side of the tower, with columns and arches deeply receding ; behind which, on the upper tier, are windows of one light each ; at this height the further view of the interior of the tower is pre- vented by a vaulting of stone, with elaborate tracery, erected in the time of the treasurer "Welbourne. The west side of the greater transept is very similar to the nave, the north and south ends" of it have each a circular window of the same dimensions, though of different designs ; they arc each twenty-four feet in diameter, and, together with the windows below them, are both filled with ancient stained glass, which gives to the interior of this transept that rich, glowing, but subdued light, the want of which is felt so keenly in every other part of the Cathedral. The east side of the transept is very similar to the choir, except in the clustered columns of the principal arcade, which arc each composed of sixteen shafts, chiefly of Purbeck marble. The aisle in both wings was anciently appro- priated to chantries, but no vestiges of altars now remain. They arc divided from each other by projecting piers of very elegant design, and from the body of the transept by screens of excellent perpen- dicular character, which add greatly to its beauty.
We will now enter the choir, which it must be confessed is more curious as an important link in the history of the pointed style, than commendable for architectural merit, especially if compared with the
1 We may here mention the font, which is placed in that part of tho building now used aa the morning-service chapel ; it is curious, and at least as old as the original church of Remigius. It consists of a circular basin, cut out of a square block of porphyry, supported by four columns, and decorated on tho aides by gryphons and other animals Very rudely carved.
1 Tho gable of the south end of tho greater transept was erected by Mr. Jlayward, architect to the Cathedral in 1804, in imitation of tho original one. which was blown down in January, 1802.
VOL. It, O
18 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
choirs of many other Cathedrals, and particularly of York, with which this Cathedral is continually brought into comparison,and yet, from the great beauty of the presbytery, two compartments of which form the chancel end of the choir, the richness of the prebendal stalls and other accessories, it is by no means deficient in appropriate effect. There are sixty-two stalls for the dean and prebendaries, with elaborate canopies, and containing misereres, or half-seats, orna- mented with foliage, and various grave and ludicrous devices. The seats of the vicars and some others arc fronted by arches, containing excellent carvings of kings, and angels playing on musical instru- ments ; the whole of these are of oak, and appear to have been ex- ecuted late in the fourteenth century. The bishop's throne is placed at the end of the south side, and, though modern, agrees very well with the stalls, a merit which the pews are entirely without. The organ also over the west end of the choir is very bad, and the front of it has displaced some rich tabernacle work, which adorned the ancient jub6, as the gallery above the screen used to be called.
In the chancel, on the south side, are two table monuments for Catherine Swineford, wife of John of Gaunt,and theirdaughtcr Joan. The brasses have been taken from both, and instead of the canopy which was originally over them, is now, alas ! a Corinthian cornice, erected after the Restoration. Opposite to these are two monuments, or rather cenotaphs, which Bishop Buller has consecrated to the memory of Remigius and Bloet, the founders and first bishops of this see. They are in the style of the presbytery itself, or a little later ; the one ascribed to Bishop Bloct is remarkable for the sculpture in the basement, consisting of three figures of men in chain armour and surcoats, reclining on their shields, and supposed to represent the guardians of the Holy Sepulchre. The altar-screen is somewhat in the style of these monuments, and is a proof of the correct taste of the late Mr. Essex, by whom it was erected. It contains a painting of the Annunciation, according with the dedication of the church, from the pencil of the late Reverend William Peters.
The fragment of a monumentin the south aisle of the choir, though unimportant in itself, has some interest attached to it as relating to the little hero of an affecting ballad, called Sir Hugh, a child, who is supposed to have been crucified at Lincoln, by certain Jews, in derision of the Saviour, in the year 1X25, and who was afterwards
•: -CA::
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. 19
honourably interred in the Cathedral, by the desire of the canons, as a martyr in the Christian cause.
The whole of the east transept corresponds in style with the choir, excepting the upper part of the south end, which appears to have been rebuilt about the middle of the thirteenth century.
We come now to the presbytery, which comprises the whole east end of the church, beyond the upper transept, and here the statues in the spandrils of the arches of the first triforium should be particularly noticed ; of these there are thirty, ten of which (the centre and prin- cipal one of each bay) are of still higher merit than the rest. The greater number are represented as employed insinging or pluyingon musical instruments, consisting of the harp, zcbec, cittern, trumpet ' tabor and pipe, double pipe, and bagpipe, which lastis designed with great taste, the upper part of the instrument being in form of a bird, which rests on the left hand of the performer, while the beak appears to supply the reed on which he plays.
The great east window is filled with modern stained glass, put up in 1762 ; it is poor and feeble, and the effect not good. The space beneath this window, where anciently stood the altar of John the Baptist, was appropriated to the chantry of Queen Eleanor, origi- nally founded at Heneley, where she died, and was transferred to this place by Edward II., in 1310. It contained an altar-tomb of marble, on which was placed her effigy, in gilded brass.
At the east end of the north aisle of the presbytery was the chantry of the Burghersh family, founded by Bartholomew, Lord Burghersh, in 1345, and dedicated to St. Catherine. On the north side of it is the monument of the founder, who died in 1356. The monument opposite to this is that of Bishop Burghersh, brother of the above named, who died in 1340 ; and the one in the same style adjoining it is ascribed by Gough, on the authority of the armorial bearings upon it, to John, Lord "Welles, who died in 1361. These tombs had formerly an elaborate canopy.
At the east end of the south aisle of the presbytery is a chantry founded by Nicholas, Lord Cantilupe, who died in 1372. By the side of this is another of the same style exactly, and supposed to be that of a prior of Norton, of the Wymbish family ; both have rich crockelted canopies with finials.
Against the north wall J* *he chantry of the Holy Trinity, founded
£0 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
by Bishop Fleming, and fronted by his monument ; his effigy in the pontifical dress is placed on a slab beneath the canopy, and under- neath he is again represented in an emaciated state, in his shroud. The tomb was in all probability erected during the lifetime of this prelate, which ended in 1430. The two chapels attached to the south wall of the presbytery we have already mentioned in the description of the exterior; the bishops by whom they were founded have similar monuments within them, consisting of elaborately decorated screens, on each of which is an altar-tomb under an extremely flat arch. The cornice of Longland's has this punning inscription, " Longa-Tcrra mensuram ejns dominus dcdit /" and his original intention wai doubtless to have been buried here ; but it appears that his heart only was deposited at Lincoln, his bowels at AVoburn, where he died, and his body at Eton.
Beside the monuments here noticed, there were anciently some others, and a number of remarkably fine brasses, which were taken away by the Puritans. But the chief ornament of the ecpulchral kind which this Cathedral possessed before the Reformation was undoubtedly the tomb of St. Hugh, which occupied a space of eight feet by four in the middle of the presbytery. The bones of this saint, inclosed in a chest of gold, were translated to this shrine with great pomp and solemnity in 1282, at which time it may be presumed this part of the church was just completed.
The Cathedral of Lincoln is certainly one of the first class in England, and most amateurs arc disposed to place it second, and inferior only to York Minster. It will be seen by the ground plan that its form is a double cross, like Canterbury and some others of the principal Cathedrals, and it is estimated that it covers no less than two acres, two roods, and six perches of land.
From the building let us now turn our attention to the most re- nowned of those who have sat within it as bishops of the diocese.
Having had occasion to speak much of Remigius, the first bishop of Lincoln, already, we have now only to add that, according to the report of historians, he was very charitably disposed towards the poor, feeding a thousand of them, daily, during three months of the year, clothing above one hundred and fifty that were blind, lame, and unable to help themselves, and had thirteen poor persons to dine with him every day.
*>«~r> *" IhkJot VBWM ton • Stetrh b.r X Ovtwrf ArlMfert iVJi. t»,«
Ml 5
K K r i h II A.
1 1 M, >i ii in, i
K /;•«/
K /V./i.1/' //' .
II II '•' M Tnui..,yf \ iti.'l/ ,in.l /i.//:,
I »/ ./>!//.•/!/
~
RKEXrK TO M«>M'MENTS. l
tnmill,*m..
>utt.-n Jl H.
.«»//.
AluA«/> ftftnlf,. JUAa /.-.^ /rto/. ^uV/- /-.
. •.At. A '
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. £1
Robert Bloet, the second bishop, was first chaplain to William the Conqueror, and afterwards chancellor to William Rufus. He added twenty-one prebendaries to the like number established by Remigius. Before he became Bishop of Lincoln, he was, say* Knyghton, a most profligate, indolent, and licentious man. Hence perhaps the cause of his being traditionally called the swineherd of Stow. It is said of him that when bishop he gave a peck of silver pennies towards completing the building of the Cathedral.
Bishop Alexander Bloet's successor was also a great benefactor to the Cathedral.
After the death of Robert de Chesney, in 1167, who succeeded Alexander, the sec was vacant eighteen years. Gautier de Coutance, who was placed in it at the end of the year 1183, held it only one year, and then was translated to Rouen ; his removal introduced the famous Hugh de Grenoble, or, as he is usually called, the Burgun- dian. This extraordinary man was born in Burgundy, of a noble family. At first he was placed by his father at the early age of eight years, in a monastery of regular canons near his castle, under the care of an old man, who gave him good instruction, and formed his man- ners and habituated him from that time to a monastic life. He was ordained deacon at the age of nineteen, and soon after had the care of a parish, although he was not yet ordained priest. Having accompanied his prior, who went for devotion's sake to the Grand Chartreuse, he conceived an ardent desire to be admitted into their society, and secretly determined to effect this, but his intentions becoming known to his brother canons, they extorted from him a promise not to quit their society ; he was not, however, long able to resist the charms which the austere piety of the monks of that place presented to his mind, he fled clandestinely from his brethren, and arrived at the Grand Chartreuse, where he was gladly received, and his scruples of conscience soon satisfied. This house was then governed by Basil, its eighth prior, who was the successor of St. Anthelm. In a short time Hugh was ordained priest, and after ho had passed ten years in his cell, the prior of the Grand Chartreuse made him his proxy, of which charge he acquitted himself so well, that his reputation spread far beyond the bounds of the province.
He afterwards came over to England by the desire of the king to cjovern the Carthusian monastery at Witham. or Weetham, in
X1,1 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
Somersetshire, which that monarch had lately founded ; he was very active in repairing the buildings and increasing the value of that establishment, and, although the English were at that time ex- tremely averse to foreigners, Hugh gained the affections of the king* and the people.
As soon as a vacancy occurred in the see of Lincoln, Prior Hugh was proposed by the king to fill that situation, and accord- ingly he sent for Richard Fitzncale, then dean of Lincoln, to come to him, with the greater part of the chapter, on the 25th of May, 1186. After having deliberated some time, they elected Hugh bishop, which was confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Hugh at first excused himself, pleading his own unworthincss, and accounting the election void, because it had been made by the authority of the king, and out of the Cathedral Church, and more- over that he could not on any account give his consent until he had first obtained the permission of his superior, the prior of the Grand Chartreuse. The chapter, however, were determined to have him for their bishop,10 and accordingly assembled in the Cathedral, again elected him with one voice, and afterwards sent a deputation to the Grand Chartreuse, which brought back not only a permission, but a positive command to Prior Hugh to accept the bishopric of Lincoln. Hugh was therefore drawn from his monas- tery, but would relax nothing from the austere discipline practised in it before he was actually consecrated ; he therefore carried with him on horseback his sheepskins and monastic habits, and thus was led to London, and consecrated bishop of Lincoln at Westminster, in the chapel of St. Catherine, on St. Matthew's day, 21st of Septem- ber, 1186." He filled the see very nearly fourteen years ; his piety continued to the day of his death to be of the same austere kind, which, however it might suit the temper of the times in which he lived, would gain few, if any, admirers now ; wo cannot help observing upon it, that the praise of it is not to be found in the gospel. Bishop
• It U Mid that he spoke to the king with so much sweetness and piety, that be could refuse him nothing, and learned as was that prince, he confessed that in Hugh he had found his master. The same king being once caught in a violent tempest at sea, became pemtaded that he owed his presenration to the prayers of Hugh, and from that ti«e his veneration for him knew no bound*. What wonder then that when so important a see ai that of Lincoln became recant, the king should desire to place his preserver in it.
»• Seeing perhaps all the while that ho was nothing loath.
» Bee liistoiie BoolenasUque, par M. Fleury, torn. XT. p. 488.
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. gft
Hugh died in London, on the 17th of November, in the year 1200, and his body being brought to Lincoln for interment during the time that the kings of England and Scotland were holding a conference in that city, it had the honour of being carried on the shoulders of those monarchs from the city gates to the Cathedral close, whence it was conducted to the choir by a vast number of prelates and other dig- nified persons both in church and state, and at the conclusion of the funeral ceremonies, interred at the east end of the church, near the altar of St. John the Baptist; but, in consequence of this bishop's canonization his remains were afterwards taken up again, and, as was before observed, deposited iu the present presbytery. This was done in the year 1282, when Oliver Sutton was bishop of this see.
Robert Greathead, or Grostete, became bishop in 1385. He was a most learned, pious, and charitable prelate. His real name, says the historian of Lincoln, was Copley, but called by the French Grostete, possibly from the unusual size of his head. He sat in the see of Lincoln eighteen years, and died bishop of it in defiance of papal excommunication. His works prepared the way for Wicklifle, and his again for the Reformation.
Among the bishops who from this time presided over the sec of Lincoln, we may mention the names of the celebrated Cardinal Beaufort ; Richard Fleming, founder of the chantry already men- tioned,and also of Lincoln College, Oxford; Thomas Rothcrham, who added some fellowships and scholarships to Lincoln College, Oxford, and for this cause accounted by that society a co-founder of it with Bishop Fleming ; Thomas Wolsey, cardinal, the founder of a college at Ipswich, his native place, and of Christ Church in Oxford ; and Thomas Cooper, the tutor of Camden, who speaks of this bishop in the highest terms of praise.
If episcopacy be the scriptural form of the visible church, or if it be only of human invention, and found by experience to be the best mode of governing and preserving that church, it is quite evident that there is not enough of it to secure these objects in England at the present time. With an enormously increased population, there has been no increase of episcopal, nor any adequate increase of inferior pastoral care within the national church. May not this account in some measure for the great defection from it which has occurred of late years ? The great mass of the laity hardly know that the church
£4 I INi'OLN CATHEDRAE
is episcopal. To those of them who think at nil upon the subject it appears to be a church without organization, without discipline, ami without government. They do not feel themselves to be members of it, and the feeling of belonging to no religious community whatever is not a comfortable feeling ; but the remedy is at hand, they join some old or set up some new dissenting community of a religious nature, in which they find themselves individually of more import- ance, and feel the connection bet ween themselves and their ministers of every degree. But let the kindly influence of episcopacy be more widely extended and more distinctly felt, by increasing the number of sees and lessening the extent of the dioceses, and we doubt not that great goodwill result fromthe measure to this church and nation.
Let a see be erected at St. Albans, where the venerable abbey church would make a noble Cathedral, and the diocese might con- tain all that part of HcrtfordshircVhich is now in Lincoln diocese, and that which is in London (whose bishop would still have more than enough work left for him to do), together with the adjoining counties of Bedford and Buckingham. If Lincoln diocese contained only the county of Lincoln, it would be large enough for one bishop. Ely might still very well take Huntingdonshire ; and another see might with great advantage be erected at Southwell, where the collegiate church would also, with its establishment of prebendaries, become the Cathedral, and for its diocese, the county of Leicester out of Lincoln diocese, and Nottinghamshire out of York (which would then be large enough, notwithstanding what Ilipon is to take from it), would be amply sufficient.
The government of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln was origi- nally committed, under the authority of the prelate, to a dean and twenty-one secular canons, the number of whom was doubled by Bishop Bloet, and further augmented by Bishop Alexander and others.
The present establishment consists of a bishop, a dean, a pre- centor, a chancellor, a sub-dean, six archdeacons, viz., those of Lincoln, Leicester, Bedford, Buckingham, Stow, and Huntingdon, fifty-two prebendaries, four priest vicars, eight lay clerks or singing men, eight choristers, seven poor clerks, seven others called the Burghcrsh chanters, and an organist.
CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.
THAT this city was once a Roman station, its very name of Chiches- ter clearly proves. If the Christian Religion were known to the inhabitants of this part of England during its occupation by the Romans, after their departure and under the dominion of other invaders every trace of it was obliterated. Towards the close of the seventh century, the same religion with some additions, not to say corruptions at this early period, was preached and established in this same part of England, then forming part of the kingdom of the South Saxons, by Wilfred Archbishop of York.
This prelate, on account of his opposition to the measures of Egfrid king of the Northumbrians with regard to ecclesiastical affairs, was banished from his see, and landed on the coast of Sussex in the year 680, at a place called Selsey, or Selsea. On his landing he is said to have performed a miracle, which inclined the pagan inhabitants not only to hear, but readily to embrace the doctrine which he taught. Up to this period the people were unacquainted with any mode by which fish might be taken in the sea, and the good archbishop, it is said, both taught them this useful art, and exhibited before them a miraculous draught of fishes. Already a fisher of men by profession, he became successful by first becoming a fisherman in the literal acceptation of the word. He only re- mained at Selsey five years, of which he is generally accounted the first bishop, and after that he found means to return to York. On his departure the bishops of Winton claimed or resumed the government of this see till the year 711, when the province of the South Saxons was divided from it by a synodal decree.
At this period Eddbright, who had hitherto styled himself abbot of Selsey, now resumed the title of bishop. Twenty-one bishops in succession after him presided over this province, and enjoyed the same tide.
Egelric, the twentieth, filled the see at the time of the Norman Conquest, and submitted himself so readily to the Conqueror, and became so useful to him in reconciling the people of the country to
VOL. II. B
;.>-, CHI CHESTER CATHEDRAL.
his joke, that he was allowed to remain in his situation to the end of his days. At his death in the year 1070, Stigand, chaplain to William I., was placed in this see by that monarch, and after he had sat therein for twelve years, he removed it from Selsey to Chichester, in the year 1082, where it has continued to this day. No account of the Cathedral at Selsey has been handed down to us ; that there must have been one or more buildings in succession dignified with the title of Cathedral, seems certain ; no trace, how- ever, of any such building now remains. Probably the parish Church of Selsey may occupy the same site, but not a stone of it ever formed any part of the ancient Cathedral.
Stigand presided over the see, after its removal to Chichester, only five years ; it may however be very well presumed that he was not inactive respecting the building of a Cathedral here, living as he did in that which may with peculiar propriety be called the building age. It is thought he designed and laid the foundations of a Cathedral, and died before it proceeded any further, in the year 1087. He was succeeded by William Galfridus, who only lived one year after his election, and concerning whom nothing else is recorded. Radulfus I. who next filled the sec had nearly finished the Cathedral, according to the original plan of Bishop Stigand, when it was burnt to the ground by an accidental fire in the year 1114. This prelate exerted himself afterwards very much for the rebuilding of his Cathedral. He induced Henry I. to contribute largely towards its restoration. He was elected in the year 1091, and died in 1 123. Probably the walls of the Cathedral were raised before his death. Bishop Scfl'rid I. succeeded him after the see had been vacant two years, and during his episcopate of twenty-one years he completed the building begun by his predecessor.
The Cathedral was again greatly injured, but not destroyed, by fire in 1186, during the prelacy of Seffrid II. who was elected in 1 180, and died in 1204. Eleven years were consumed in repairing the havoc made by this second fire, and adding a new work on the old walls in the purest style of the twelfth century. These repairs and additions were so considerable that a new dedication of the whole fabric was thought necessary, which ceremony was performed by this bishop in the year 1199, who had in the same year assisted at the coronation of King John. Simon Fitz waiter afterwards obtained
CIIICII ESTER CATHEDRAL. 27
leave of the Icing to bring marble from Purbcck, which he employed on the further embellishment of the Cathedral.
Ralph Neville, elected in 1222, is thought to have designed and begun the spire, but he did not live to finish it, and died in 1244. Gilbert de St. Leofard, elected in 1288, and who died in 1301, built the Lady Chapel at the east end of the Cathedral. John de Langton elected in 1305, finished the presbytery and south wing of the transept, and died in 1336. By this time we may presume this Cathedral had arrived at its present state of completeness ; if it had not, this last-mentioned prelate would in all probability have effected it, as he had great skill in architecture, and displayed it in building another episcopal scat, called Amberley Castle. But in so speaking we must not be understood to say, that no alteration or addition has been made of a less important nature, but that the main walls of the Cathedral, together with its central tower and spire, were all completed, as they now appear, excepting only that the ravages of time and fanaticism have done it some wrong.
From what has been already stated then, it appears that the present Cathedral of Chichester, though designed and planned by Stigand the first bishop, was not begun until the time of Hadulfus I., who, about the end of the eleventh century, laid the foundations, and had nearly finished it when it was destroyed by fire, in 1114. Propably, however, by this expression the timber roof must be principally referred to : the walls were not so damaged as to require reconstruction ; for William of Malmsbury, after mentioning King Henry I. as a chief contributor to its restoration, adds, speaking of
Bishop Radulfus, ecclesiam suam, quam a novo fecerat, etc.
brcvi refecit. The second fire in the year 1186, in the month of November, destroyed a second timber roof, and otherwise injured the fabric ; but again the walls and arcades were preserved ; upon which Bishop Seffrid II. engrafted a new work according to the style of the age in which he lived ; and though the church was again dedicated by him, he did not live to complete his work, which consisted chiefly of the upper triforium or ambulatory all round the Cathedral, the upper story of the western towers, one of which only now remains and the lower story of the central tower ; the principal portion of which must have been erected only just before the spire which is placed upon i*
CU1CBESTER CATHEDRAL.
Of the present Lady Chapel, presbytery, and south wing of the transept we have already given the history ; of other portions of this Cathedral, and of the buildings which may be called its appendages, we shall take occasion to speak in the detailed description of its exterior and interior, in the order in which they occur*
EXTERIOR.
Few Cathedrals have so unfavourable a site and elevation as this, in a very small area, surrounded by buildings, and placed in the middle of a parish churchyard. At a distance, however, the Cathedral is not without importance, and the tower and spire have some pretensions to magnificence and beauty; but they lose a great deal of their effect by being viewed from any point within the pre- cincts. This Cathedral is certainly not one of the first magnitude, nor of the first class in any respect : it is extremely plain, but of good proportions ; and smaller than any, if we except the Welch Cathedrals, and that of Oxford ; those of Carlisle and Bristol it would be unjust to bring into the comparison, because they have both been deprived of their naves, which when standing, if we may judge by what remains of them, would have caused those Cathedrals to have far surpassed this of Chichester, as well in decoration as in size.
According to our custom, we will place the reader opposite the west front, and begin our description of the exterior with that portion of the Cathedral. In its complete state it would never bear a comparison with the west front of any other Cathedral in England, except perhaps in the instances of Rochester and Norwich. The plan is the usual one of a gable between the two towers, one tower, the southern, only remain ; a plain solid wall embattled, and sloped at the top, and flanked by a buttress with plain pinnacle, occupies the place of the northern tower. There is but one entrance into the Cathedral from the west, viz., in the centre, which leads into the nave ; before this entrance is built a plain low and deep porch, with double buttresses at the corners ; it is entered by a wide arch, under which are two smaller ones, supported by a single column clustered ; the space between these two and the larger one which
•
CHICIIBSTER CATHEDRAL. £9
incloses them is adorned with a large quatrefoil ; the whole porch is of the earliest period of the pointed style. Immediately above this porch are three windows of the same date, the middle one rising a little higher than the lateral ones. Above these is a large pointed window of a later date, probably inserted at the time when the south wing of the transept was built by Bishop Langton ; but the original tracery and mullions have all disappeared, and those which have been substituted in modern times do not speak much in favour of the liberality or the taste of the persons concerned. Above this window is the gable itself, quite plain, except that it contains two small windows of early pointed work, now walled up. The west end of the nave to the north is flanked by a plain square buttress, terminated by a low pinnacle equally plain. The southern tower rises a little, and but a little, above the gable point. The basement story and the next above it, are both certainly of the original work of Radulfus ; the two remaining stories may with equal safety be ascribed to the munificence of Seffrid II. The lower of these two stories contains a single pointed arch, while the upper has two such arches in each face : the arches in the two lowest stories are round headed. The tower ends abruptly, having neither parapet nor pinnacles : it is square and has very plain and heavy buttresses at the outer corners of it, which reach no higher than the beginning of the early pointed portion of the tower.
Nearly parallel with the west front and at a few yards distance to the north of it, stands a campanile, or bell tower, so usual in Italy, but the only instance of it in England. It is 120 feet high, and is chiefly remarkable for its massivcncss, and almost a total want of decoration. It is square, has double buttresses at the corners, a pointed door under a square label in the west face of it, and three windows of the same style one above the other. The upper story is similar to the great west tower of Ely Cathedral, but very inferior to that in every respect. The plan, however, is the same, and it was probably built at the same time, if not by the same architect. It is octagonal, but very low, and is set upon, and within the square tower, and joined to the angular turrets of it by plain flying buttresses. The turrets rise a little above the octagon, and have like that and the square poition below embattled parapets,
30 CHICIIESTER CATHEDRAL.
Nothing can be said in praise of this isolated tower ; it is ill pro- portioned, heavy, and plain even to unpleasantness.
The north and south aisles of the Cathedral are very much alike. The windows of the side chapels of the nave, added in the time of Edward III. are of early decorated work, hut very plain examples of that style.1 Between the windows are plain buttresses, which perhaps once had pinnacles of a more ornamented character, which arc now gone. The parapet is quite plain ; as is that also of the clerestory above : except that underneath the lower string course of it, runs a line of small pointed arches without columns, which seems to support the parapet. The windows of the clerestory are round- headed, and belong to the original church, though some of them contain mullions and tracery of a much later date. Plain flying buttresses between each window connect the clerestory with the outer walls of the side chapels of the nave. The transept is by far the most ornamented portion of this Cathedral. It was lengthened by Bishop Langton. The south wing of it contains the only window in the whole building which can be called rich. It is a fine example of the style of architecture then newly introduced, more elaborate and of better design than that in the north end of the transept, but inferior to that of the eame date in the chapel of Mcrton College, Oxford. Above this window in the south front of the transept is a small rose window in the gable of it, which is half destroyed; the tracery is rich, feathered, and good ; both ends of the transept are flanked with plain heavy buttresses terminated by low embattled turrets. The north transept has no gable point, and no window over the large one.
We come now to the choir. The side walls are as plain as those of the nave ; it has no side chapels, but the walls of the side aisles are equally devoid of decoration with the clerestory above. The cast end of the Cathedral is flat, but not inelegant To the lower story of it the Lady Chapel is attached : the next story contains three well-proportioned windows of one light each, all lancet-headed, the middle one rising a little above the others, an arrangement
1 It ought to be mentioned that the mullions and tracery of theee nare chapel* to to south dde of the Cathedral, are not original; they hare been inserted at a subsequent |OM, and by their perpendicular character must belong to the sixteenth century.
CHICH ESTER CATHEDRAL. 31
almost universal at this period of the pointed style. Above these windows in the next story, rises the gable point ; and under it is a small rose window, the tracery of which is composed of seven feathered circles, one in the centre and six round it, all of equal diameter. The east end is flanked by two heavy octagonal turrets embattled ; the upper portions of them are adorned with slender columns, and the southern one has small arches springing from the capitals, and they are terminated by low spires, which are relieved a little by round mouldings running up the angles of them, and by a good but simple finial.
The Lady Chapel has nothing to recommend it to particular attention, except that it now contains a good collection of books. At a chapel it must always have been wanting in elevation, as a library it is not a badly proportioned room, and the books are in excellent preservation. The east window is stopped up, which is much to be regretted. There are eight other windows, four on each side, of three lights each, with good flowing tracery in the heads of them ; these still light the library and its ante-room, which was formerly the ante-chapel.
We come now to the central tower and spire, which together give to the Cathedral Church of Chichester all the dignity and importance it possesses on a distant view of it, and all the elegance and beauty it has to boast, externally, on a nearer approach.
This tower and spire have been compared to those of Salisbury Cathedral, and though inferior in respect to elevation and richness, they will not yield to them in point of proportion, decoration, and general good effect. The tower is a story lower than that of Salis- bury, and probably altogether not above half its height. The low story, which rises no higher than the ridge of the leaden roof, is adorned with a row of trefoil-headed arches upon slender columns. The next and principal story of the tower is of good elevation and proportion, and contains in each face of it two pointed windows, which arc all divided by a single column supporting two pointed arches within the greater ones. The tower has turrets at the four corners, which rise a little above the parapet of the tower, and like that are embattled. The spire alone is, perhaps, to the full, as lofty as that of Salisbury, and if so is in no respect inferior to it. It is octagonal, and at its base, in the four faces of it opposite the
."U C111CHE8TER CATHEDRAL.
four points of the compass, arc placed very elegant pointed win- dows of two lights each, flanked with slender buttresses, terminated by crocketted pinnacles, and having rich and delicate canopies, with crockets and finials. Up each angle of the spire runs a plain round moulding, and around it arc set two horizontal bands of tracery one above the other, broad, and of very delicate and elegant design. The whole is surmounted by a graceful fmial, on which is set the weathercock.
The cloisters arc situated on the south side of the Cathedral : they arc built only on three sides, which arc all of unequal length, and not at right angles to each other, nor to the walls of the Ca- thedral which occupies the fourth side, and which may be entered at either extremity of the cloister. The space thus inclosed is of course of a very irregular and almot indescribable shape. It is used as a burying ground, and is called tho .Paradise. It is not known to whom the erection of the cloisters is to be attributed. The windows are of early perpendicular character, and therefore we may date the cloisters about the beginning of the fifteenth, or at the close of the preceding century. The roof is flat, and of wood: their effect is very much injured by being walled up, and otherwise defaced in many places.
INTERIOR.
The interior of this Cathedral is much more imposing than the exterior from any point of view. The nave is well proportioned, and is not without dignity. Each side is composed of an arcade of eight circular arches, supported by seven flat piers, isolated, and flanked by half columns of cylindrical character, with plain capitals, under which is a cable moulding ; above this arcade is the lower triforium, and above that again is another, through which are seen the windows of the clerestory.
The lower triforium consists of a succession of circular arches of the Rome span as those of the arcade below, within each are two circular arches resting on a single column ; the space between these two smaller arches is filled up with stone, the surface of which is hatched as at Rochester. Unfortunately Bishop Sherlock, in order to conceal the rafters of the side aisles which were visible through
CATHEBOLAJL
NAVE LOOKING KA::T
emeu ESTER CATUKDKAL* ^g
the arches themselves of this lower triforiutn, had them walled up, nearly to the height of the capitals of their little columns, which has destroyed all proportion and greatly injured tho general effect. Every visitor will at onco admit that the said rafters had better have continued to be visible, as they still are in the nave of Peter- borough Cathedral, than concealed as they are in this. Between these two naves indeed there is a very striking analogy, as well as in the choirs of both, and a very singular coincidence in their early history, bolh having been destroyed by fire, and both rebuilt about the same time. Probably, therefore, the work of re-edifi- cation was entrusted to the same architect, and, if so, the great similarity in the plan of both is at once accounted for.
Bishop Seffrid's addition to the Cathedral was" as we have before observed, the upper triforiutn, which is much more lofty than that beneath. It is deemed a perfect example of the early pointed style, but then newly sprung up. The middle arch of the three is round, and seems to have been so constructed merely to accommodate itself to the round window in the original wall behind it. It is as usual elevated above the other two which are pointed. The small columns of this triforiuui are of Pctworth marble, with capitals carved so as to represent the leaves of the palm tree. Slabs of the same material inserted into the side walls rest upon the pillars and support the superstructure ; about the same time also were introduced the filleted clusters attached to the pillars from the floor to the springing of the ribs of the vaulting, which connects very well with the upper tri- foriuni and the string courses of Purbeck marble.' The vaulting is of early but uncertain date, apparently subsequent t .> Seffrid's work, and not much so ; but the architect warned by Itro conflagrations constructed it of stone and chalk instead of wood. About the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, the whole vaulting was painted with various scrolls and flowers, in gaudy colours. This was done by the direction and at the expense of Bishop Sherburnc. We come now to the transept, the north wing of which is appropriated as the parish church of St. Peter the Great ; it is of equal dimensions with the south wing, and in all other respects is very similar to it. The south
3 In the embellishment of the naro both Purbcck and Pctworth marblo were used. Tho former is superior greatly to tho latter in every respect, and it therefore placed nearer the eye. As the rclworlh marble is composed of shelly particle*, it u much more liable to decomposition, which u apparent iu the pillar* of tho uoocr triforium. Vol. II. F
Ji CI1ICHESTEB CATHEDRAL.
wing contains the monument of Bishop Langton, and the shrine of St. Richard, of whom we shall have occasion to speak again in our account of the most eminent bishops of this see. This shrine was finished before Bishop Langton's alteration of the transept already noticed was begun. The lancet arch which connects this wing of the transept with the side aisle of the choir, is a beautiful example of that style upon its first introduction into this country. The side walls of this portion of the transept were embellished in 1519, at the expense of Bishop Sherburne, in a very extraordinary manner. He employed a Flemish artist to paint two large pictures upon oak panel, the subjects of which are two principal epochs in the history of the see, viz., the foundation of it at Selsey by Cead walla, and the establishment of four prebends by himself. To these paintings have been added a series of the bishops of Selsey and Chichester, and of the kings of England. In their original state the two first named paintings had great merit, considering the time in which they were executed ; but having been much injured by the par- liament soldiers, their restoration was intrusted by Bishop Mawson to an inferior artist, which has been destructive of all their original merit except the mere outline and design.
Between the nave and choir was once the oratory of Bishop Arundcl, built before A.D. 1477, which still serves as a dividing screen and supports the organ. It consists of three arches : the middle one by which the choir is entered having only half the breadth of those on each side of it. The roof of this screen is beautifully fretted, and the whole surmounted by a series of small niches, in which gilded statues of saints were formerly placed.
Before we proceed to speak of the choir we must conduct the reader back to the nave, in order to make him acquainted with a very remarkable addition which the Cathedral of Chichester re- ceived in that part of it, early in the reign of Edward III.
When the chantries in this had increased to a number not common in other Cathedrals, a plan was adopted of adding another aisle to each of those already built on each side of the nave ; in which sepa- rate oratories might be constructed for the various offices required by the founders to be performed in them. A communication was then formed by piers and aichcs with the original aisles on each side ; and whenever the modern obstructions shall be removed, the
view in THE rut
CniCH ESTER CATHEDRAL. 85
whole area will extend even beyond that of the largest Cathedrals, and will produce a very picturesque effect. Indeed, the restoration of the Cathedral of Scfirid to the original purity of its design would be an event very interesting to the lovers of Gothic architecture.
Bishop SefFrid's restored church terminated with the cast end of the present choir, which extends westward across the transept to the nave. The stalls were erected by Bishop Shcrburne ; they are of carved oak, good, but inferior to those of many other Cathedrals; there are eighteen on each side, and the whole occupy no more space than the area under the great central tower. The ancient episcopal throne was defaced by the fanatical soldiers under Waller's com- mand ; the present one was given by Bishop Mawson. The choir extends only to three arcades beyond the tower, and they are exactly similar to those of the nave. The wainscot screen of the altar is very lofty and elaborate, and of the same date with the stalls. In 1731 the present marble pavement was laid down, and the whole uniformly painted and gilded as it had originally been by Bishop Sherburne. This choir, although far inferior to many others, if space or splendour be considered, is nevertheless to be admired for its simple and characteristic effect.
We come now to the presbytery, beyond the choir ; it consists of two arcades only, the last piers of which have slender detached columns of Purbeck marble. The plan of this part of the Cathedral was probably given about the year 1230 by Bishop Neville, adopted in his time and continued, with the addition of the Lady Chapel, by Bishop St. Leofard. These works were not completed before the close of the thirteenth century. The lower triforium of the presby- tery is beautifully ornamented with much rich tracery and carving, and the pillars of it are of Purbeck marble and clustered. There is a great similarity between this and the presbytery added to Ely Cathedral by Bishop Hotham, in the year 1235 ; although it must be confessed the latter presbytery far exceeds the former both in dimensions and in the richness and variety of its ornamental detail.
At the east end of the presbytery is the entrance into the Lady Chapel ; of the interior of which nothing more need be added to that which has been already either stated or necessarily implied in the account of its erection and external appearance.
On the east side of the south wing of the transept ia the chapter
3C CHICIIE8TER CATHEDRAL.
house, a small square room, the arched roof and windows of which plainly indicate that it was built about the beginning or towards the middle of the thirteenth century, and is probably the work of Bishop Neville, by whom the dean and chapter were first established. The sacristy (now the vestry) is a large room added by Bishop Langton. In it is placed an ancient oak chest, made of the rudest planks, eight feet long by twenty inches broad, havingfive locksof curious construction. Mr. Dallaway (from whoso valuable history of Western Sussex the principal part of our information upon the history of Chichester Cathedral has been gleaned) declares this chest to be most unques- tionably a work of Saxon times, and that it is known to have been originally brought from Sclscy. Above that room, and having a spacious round staircase communicating with the south aisle of the choir, is the bishop's consistory court, of the same dimensions. It was built in the reign of Henry VI., and fitted up for the trial of heretics, particularly the Lollards, then a prevailing sect. Behind the seats of the official and his assistants is a sliding door in the wainscot, concealing aroom in which the prisoners were confined, and from which they were brought out one by one into the court. Of tho monuments which remain the following are the most remarkable : — 1. That of Richard de la Wyche, or St. Richard. On a table tomb is the figure of the canonized bishop in his robes, within a spacious and richly decorated arcade of three arches, supported on small clustered columns, terminated by crockettcd pinnacles. The arches are feathered, and have very graceful flowing canopies elegantly crockctted, and terminated by finials. The roof of this arcade is of beautiful fretwork. 2. A table tomb of Bishop Langton, with a figure of the prelate somewhat larger than life, within an arched recess, very similar to the former. 3. The table tomb of Bishop Sherburne, with the figure of the bishop also in his robes, beneath a single arched recess, ornamented with good feathered panelling. These are all the oncicnt monuments of any account now in existence, and even these have suffered much mutilation in the days of fanaticism. Among the modern monuments we cannot omit to mention that which has been raised to the memory of the poet Collins. It is of Flaxman's design, and does credit to his splendid talents as a sculptor. The poet if represented sittinginarcclining posture duriuga lucid interval of the malady to which he was subject ; as if seeking consolation in.
CHIC lEt IE! 3 TIE ft
NORTHERN AISLE
ClIICIIESTER CATHEDHM.. 87
the pngcs of the New Testament, which is open before him, whilst his lyre and one of his best compositions lie neglected at his feet, Two other mural tablets by the same artist, one to the memory of Dean Ball, and the other to that of Alderman Dear, arc among the happiest works of human genius.
The bishops of Chichestcr had in former times no fewer than four large palaces in the country, besides several smaller ones for the sake of more retirement and privacy, and one very large one in London. Of all these residences one only now remains, viz., the palace at Chichcster, westward of the Cathedral, which, for the antiquity of some portions of it, deserves to be noticed in this place. It is usually called Chichcster House. A Roman pavement and some coins having been discovered about the premises; it is conjectured that this palace is built on the site of a Roman villa. The most ancient parts of the building are — 1. The Chapel of the time of Henry III. ; the intersecting ribs of the vaulting are more complicated than in earlier examples of this style. The door is circular headed, with a Norman moulding. The windows are of a much later date. Ordinations are sometimes performed in it. 2. The large old kitchen of the conventual form and construction, with a double arched door, and a roof supported by trusses of oak beams at the four angles. 3. The hall which corresponds with the kitchen in every respect ; ihis room was formerly applied to the purposes not only of hospitality, but of judicial proceedings also. It had probably become ruinous before the time of Bishop Shcrburne, who remodelled it, when he rebuilt that wing of the palace, and divided it into a lower and upper apartment. Few examples of timber frame ceilings remain so per- fect at this day as this of the present refectory, or great dining room ; it is painted in compartments with Gothic scrolls, and the armorial bearingsof the nobility and gentry connected with Bishop Sherburnc.
The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Peter ; the revenues of the sec are rated in the king's books at £677 1*. 3d. per annum ; the present annual value somewhat exceeds £2000.
The bishops of Chichester were formerly ex qfficio confessors to the queens of England.
The establishment of this Cathedral at present consists of a bishop, a dean, two archdeacons, viz., of Chichcster and Lewes, four canons residentiary, twenty-eight prebendaries, who are not mem-
38 CniCHESTER CATHEDRAL.
bers of the chapter, a precentor, treasurer, chancellor, and twelve vicars choral, besides an organist and choristers. The diocese contains nothing more than the county of Sussex.
The dimensions of the Cathedral are as follows : — Nave, from the west door to the entrance of the choir, 156 feet long and 20 wide ; original aisles 12 feet, additional 14 feet, total internal width 91 feet 9 inches. Transept, 130 feet long and 34 wide. Choir, from en- trance to altar screen, 105 feet long and 26 wide ; aisles 12 feet, total width 60 feet. From the back of choir to the entrance of Lady Chapel, 56 feet 2 inches. The chapel and ante-room 62 feet 9 inches long and 20 feet 7 inches wide. Height of the spire, 271 feet ; vaulting of nave, 61 feet 6 inches ; of choir, 59 feet 2 inches ; under the tower, 67 feet ; chapel, 22 feet high.
We will now conclude our history and description of Chichester Cathedral with a brief account of some of the most remarkable prelates who have presided over the diocese.
Richard Poore, elected in 1215, was translated to Salisbury in 1217 ; his talents as an architect are most renowned. The present Cathedral of Salisbury was designed by him and carried on to a considerable extent before he died. That Cathedral alone is suffi- cient to perpetuate his name.
Ralph Neville, elected in 1222, was also chancellor of England ; he greatly improved the revenues of the sec, and built the episcopal residence in London, the site of which is now occupied by Lincoln's Inn. He is said also to have designed and begun the spire, which was far from being completed at his death, in the year 1244.*
Richard de la Wychc, elected in 1245, a prelate renowned for his unbounded charity to the poor, and ardent zeal for preaching to the people, who followed him by thousands, perhaps, however, more for the sake of his gifts, than for his doctrine. He died in 1258, and when his body was being prepared for interment, it was found wrapped in a shirt of horse hair, and bound with circles of iron. May not the
' A singular expedient WM iqggartad tod put in practice for tho future preservation of this spire in tempestuous seasons, in consequence ot danger apprehended from the dbeto of a thunder-storm in 1721, by which several large stones were forced out, which were immediately replaced, and the fissure cannot now be perceived. Tho expedient is this": at nearly 90 feet from the base of the spire a floor is suspended by irons attached externally to the flnial, and which intersect the king post at every angle of tho spire, aad acting as a weight, it is thought, contribute much to the safety of tho structure by JMMI i ia§ tb» equilibrium,
III I i ,i, \. i TO MONI'MKSTS
J II*u»'-Jtujl>ijj.*n
' /.'•!/• «•/ /..-ftf tin,! l.^Jn .IruftJfl in t-r u t..iJn j//iX/i4'"'/ •unn-nt /«• Edmu/ul «.'-...
i, fi.it. t. Stirmt 7 Ou/u-fi l.a>ii/U'n '.r
.inaatt ..////•//</. J> huht-f SHainirnf'.<
ll' I'l ,in. i. Ill ..i, Iff I.:. 11 fll.<flt>f> trfitvtj .\lt-n'
7. /»/.>A.
Li tti.tttff i.nl.-t, -n .t d*
"if* ••//(/•/(.-/• A./// .///•/-.
T.-nibs or' Jerltt 27 Ji'17u
19 f U> At./uy /.,///•// '/.•/• ll'.
l Jtturs ti'/t t>i lu.iun.->i<{.> K ht..H.'i~ M. nlin. . •ui/ • J'aitit
BEfr.MKKCE TO I'UAN A A \«>r B »r.. / An*
J « O .\VrtA hanjffl i, turxt
\l. ir,,i,.i
E .**'u*A Jhuitcft < A.-//-
CHICHBSTBR CATHEDRAL 89
words of the prophet be fairly brought to bear upon this and such like fccts of severe mortification of the body, and the question put to the advocates of these things, " Who hath required these things it your hands, to tread ray courts P* Many miracles are reported to have been wrought by this prelate in his life-time, and after his decease, these, together with a life of austere piety, led to his canonization in the year 1262. This event became immediately a fruitful source of great revenue to the see of Chichestcr, and ceased to be so only with the superstition in which it originated.
John Kemp, elected in the year 1420, and afterwards attained the highest honours in the state under the king, and in the church had no superior but the pope. In 1421 he was translated to London ; in 1426 he became archbishop of York, over which province he pre- sided twenty-eight years, and was then removed to Canterbury. For four years he was chancellor of England. While he was archbishop of York, he was created a cardinal, in the year 1439. While arch- bishop of Canterbury, he founded a college at Wye, in Kent. He died in the year 1455, and was buried in the Cathedral of Canterbury.
Adam Molyneux, elected in 1445, was very zealously attached to Henry VI., by whom he was made secretary to the privy council and keeper of the privy seal. Alarmed at the unsettled state of the times, as some say, or as others, finding himself unable to discharge any longer the duties of his high office, he obtained permission to resign his bishopric, and to go abroad with an annuity for his main- tenance of five hundred marks ; but in the same year, 1449, while at Portsmouth preparing for his voyage, he was basely murdered in a boat by some sailors, hired for the purpose, as historians assert, by Richard, duke of York.
Reynold Pecocke, elected in 1449, was unjustly removed for having boldly declared the necessity of a reformation in the doctrine of the church and morals of the clergy ; he has the honour of being the first bishop in England who dared to do this during his episcopate. He held the see thirteen years, and was then publicly tried for heresy, was obliged to recant, was then degraded from his office, when all his writings were burnt, and he himself, half prisoner, half guest, wat consigned to the care of the abbot of Thorney,in Cambridgeshire, who had with him an annual salary of £40 for his maintenance. This unfortunate prelate has been accused of holding and touching
40 Cll It'll LSTEtt CATUbDUAL.
doctrines of a Socininn cast. However this may be, he did not long survive his degradation ; but died of grief at Thorney, about the end of the year 1462.
Edward Storey, elected in 1478, built the beautiful market cross in the city of Chichester, and founded the fifraimnar school there. He died in the year 1502.
Richard Montagu, elected in 1628, was a prelate of great eru- dition, the most acute and powerful controversialist of the age in which he lived. His avowed and equal opposition both to papists and puritans were alone sufficient to recommend him to the ruling powers of the day for promotion to the bench of bishops ; it cer- tainly procured for him the see of Chichester first, and his trans- lation afterwards to that of Norwich in 1638, which he retained onlj three years, dying in 1641, bishop of that see.
Henry King, elected in 1641, was son of John King, bishop of London, who was the great nephew of Robert King, the last abbot of Oseney and first bishop of Oxford. He is ranked among the best poets of his own times, and was a most popular preacher, as in his discourses he adopted the language and manner of the puri- tans, a sect then daily gaining ground in the kingdom. His accept- ance of the mitre lost for him the former good opinion of the parliament : so that at the siege of Chichestcr his Cathedral was attacked with tenfold fury, his palace and goods ransacked and destroyed, and he himself treated with cruel indignity by the sol- diery. At the Restoration he returned to Chichester, and repaired the Cathedral and palace, and died in 1669.
John Lake, elected in 1685, having taken the oaths of allegiance to James II., refused with Archbishop Sancroft and four other bishops to repeat them to William III., and was therefore sus- pended from his functions and emoluments, and died in London a few months after his deprivation, in the year 1689. Every action of his life was marked by firmness and consistent conduct.
Thomas Manningham, elected in 1709, was also chaplain to Queen Anne, who being ill, the bishop was desired to read prayers in another room ; but he replied, " I do not choose to whistle the prayers of the church through a key-hole."
Bishops Patrick and Mawson, having both been translated to Ely, will be noticed in the history of that Cathedral.
1
»: 3
ELY CATHEDRAL.
TUB Christian religion in England gradually declined from the time of the Saxon invasion, and was entirely extinct in many parts, when Pope Gregory sent a number of missionaries from Rome, with the famous Augustin at their head, to endeavour to bring about the conversion of our Saxon ancestors. This company of preachers arrived in the Isle of Thanet, in the year 597.
The Isle of 'Ely at that time formed a part of the kingdom of East Anglia, which was founded by Uffa, the eighth in descent from Woden, about the year 575.
Redwald, grandson of Uffa, was persuaded by Ethelbert, king of Kent, to embrace the Christian faith, and was accordingly baptized in the year 599. Ethelbert, at the instigation of Augustin, founded a church at Cratendune, one mile from the present city of Ely, soon after Redwald's conversion ; and Redwald himself, it is asserted, founded one in Ely. This is nevertheless questioned by some, and yet all are agreed that he certainly founded one at Rendlesham, in Suffolk, one of his royal seats. Redwald, however, soon after his conversion relapsed into idolatry, at the instigation of his wife and other evil councillors ; and yet not so as wholly to reject the Christian religion, for he had in the same building an altar dedicated to Christ and another to idols. Probably his conversion was never sound and sincere, or perhaps he was but imperfectly instructed ; however this may be, he has the character of having been indifferent about all religion, and, as might be expected, under such a king, the Christian religion languished during the whole of his reign in the kingdom of East Anglia. Redwald died in the year 62 J-, and was succeeded by his son Eorpwald, who was not converted and baptized till after he ascended the throne. This event was brought about by the per- suasion of his friend Edwin, king of Northumberland, who was a very zealous Christian. UnderEorpwald, had he lived, the Christ ian religion would have flourished, but the general conversion of the East Angles was soon again interrupted by his death. lie was slain by Richer t, a pagan, who at the same time took possession of the kingdom, though he wasnever firmly seated on the throne. For three years nothing but confusion and misery was to be seen in East Anglia.
VOL. II O
42 ELY CATHEDRAL.
At the expiration of that time, Sigebert, the brother of Eorpwald, then an exile in France (though on what account is not known), returned to England, and was soon after placed on the throne which his father and brother had filled before him. During the period of his banishment in France he had been converted and baptized, and if said by historians to have been an eminently virtuous and pious prince. The origin of the neighbouring university of Cambridge is attributed to him : he founded also a bishop's sec at Dunwich, an abbey at Burgh Castle, and another at Bury, all in Suffolk. After a prosperous reign of four years, in which the general conversion of his lubjects was completed, he retired from his kingdom and the world into his own abbey at Burgh Castle, where he took the profession and habit of religion. He resigned his crown in favour of Egric, his cousin, who had for some time been coadjutor withhim in the kingdom
About four years after the abdication of Sigcbert, Fcnda, the pagan king of Mcrcia, came suddenly with a powerful army into East Anglia, and laid the whole country waste with fire and sword. In this distress Egric and his subjects besought Sigcbert to come forth from his retirement, and lend them his powerful assistance by his advice and his presence. He resisted, however, their first solicit- ation, and replied to it, that he did not think it consistent with his religious profession and habit to bear arms : but on a second appli- cation, he so far yielded to their wishes as to leave his retirement, and appear with the army on the field of battle, though he would have nothing in his hand but a wand, and persisted to the last in his resolution of taking no active part in the fight. The consequence was that both Sigebert and Egric were slain, and their whole army defeated.
To Egric succeeded Anna, the son of Enus, who was the brother of Rcdwald. Anna was an excellent Christian prince, greatly and justly beloved by all his subjects. In his time Christianity flourished ; but the same Penda came again into East Anglia, the country was again reduced to a desert, and the good king Anna, with his eldest son, Jurminus, both slain. Before Anna came to the throne he married Hereswitha, daughter of Hereric, grandson of Edwin, and sister of the famous St. Hilda, the foundress of Whitby Abbey. By Hcreswitha, Anna had a numerous, and, as Bcde says, a glorious, offspring, viz., Jurminus, slain with his father in the field of battle ;
ELY CATHEDRAL. •}.;
Adulfus, who succeeded his father in the kingdom ; Erkcnwald, who was bishop of London, in the year G75, and founded the abbey of Barking, in Essex ; Sexburga, who wa« married to Ercombcrt, king of Kent ; Edclburga, who became abbess of Barking ; With- burga, who founded a nunnery at East Dercham, in Norfolk ; and Ethcldreda, the renowned foundress of the abbey in Ely, who was born about the year 630, at Ixning, then a place of considerable importance, but now a small Tillage in the most western part of Suffolk, bordering on Cambridgeshire. Etheldreda became the first abbess of her own foundation at Ely, about the year 673, which bhe governed so as to gain the esteem and veneration not only of all the members of her convent, but of the inhabitants of the surround- ing country. She died in the year 679, and was succeeded by her sister Sexburga, who was then become a widow. Sexburga governed the establishment with equal credit to herself and advantage to the convent and the neighbourhood for twenty years, and dying in the year 699, was succeeded by her own daughter Ermcnilda ; how long she remained at the head of the convent is not known, but her fame as a good abbess is scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of those who preceded her in the same place and dignity. She had a daughter named Wcrburga, who became the next abbess on the death of her mother ; of Werburga we know but little more than that, like her predecessors and relatives, she also was canonized; and hence we may presume she was little, if at all, inferior to them in respect of piety and charity, and those austere virtues and mor- tifications which usually paved the way for a reception into the calendar. The time of her death is not known, nor the manner of it. but many abbesses after St. Werburga succeeded each other till the year 870, when the monastery was destroyed by the Danes ; and shortly after that was occupied by a college of secular priests till the reign of King Edgar, when the abbey was refounded by Ethel- wold, bishop of Winchester, in the year 970. Brithnoth, prior of Winchester, was the first abbot ; he was placed here by the founder and rebuilt the conventual church. In 1066, Thurston was abbot, and defended the Isle of Ely seven years against William the Conqueror. In 1081 Simeon, another prior of Winchester, was elected abbot, who laid the foundation of the present Cathedral. After his death there was a vacancy of seven years. In 1100 a
44 ELY CATHEDRAL.
person, who is called only Richard, succeeded Simeon. This abbot Richard obtained the king's licence and the pope's consent to erect the abbey into a bishopric, but he died before the change was legally effected. In 1107 Hervey, bishop of Bangor, from which see it is said he was justly driven away, was elected abbot of Ely. He renewed the attempt of his predecessor to make Ely a bishop's see, and after two years succeeded, and was himself the first bishop of it. Many obstacles presented themselves, but he had the good fortune to overcome them all. After the change had been determined upon, the next question was as to what should constitute the new diocese. Ely was already a part of the diocese of Lincoln, and the bishops of Lincoln claimed some sort of jurisdiction within the Isle of Ely itself, though it seems this claim had never been legally settled in their favour. Hervey communicated with Robert, then bishop of Lincoln, upon this subject, and it was at length agreed upon between them, that the manor of Spaldwick, in Huntingdonshire, then part of the possessions of the abbey of Ely, should be given up and conveyed to Robert and his successors for ever, in exchange for all his peculiar jurisdiction in the isle, and all his episcopal rights over the whole county of Cambridge, which was henceforth to form the new diocese of Ely. The matter was next brought before a council assembled in London by the king's desire in the year 1 108, wherein it was agreed that the diocese of Lincoln was too extensive for the superintendence of one bishop, and that the interests of religion required that another bishopric should be taken out of it, whose see should be fixed in the abbey of Ely. To this arrangement the pope, on application being made to him, readily consented. Such was the origin of the see and diocese of Ely. We will now proceed to give an account of that superb fabric whose foundations were laid as an abbey, but which very soon after become a Cathedral Church. The foundations of the present Cathedral were laid by Simeon, abbot of Ely, in the time of Henry I. and William llufus : he did not live to furnish more than the old choir and the transept. Of his work the transept only now remains. The nave, great western tower (as high as the first battlements), with its south wing, arc the next portions in point of antiquity : the former was finished in 1 174, and the latter in 1189. In 1200 the western portico was begun, and finished in 1215 ; it was anciently called the galilec. Of these
ELY CATHEDRAL. 45
adjuncts to our Cathedrals some account has been given in the history and description of Lincoln Cathedral.
In 1552 the Cathedral was extended eastward six arches more. This building is called the presbytery. About the same time a spire was erected on the old central tower, which in all probability con- tributed to its downfall, winch happened in the year 1322.
In 1321 the new Lady Chapel, now Trinity Church, was begun.
In 1322 the octagon was begun, and in the year following the building of the three arches eastward of it, the former ones having been destroyed by the falling of the old tower principally in that direction. In 1328 the stonework of the octagon was finished. In 1342 the woodwork and roof of the octagon and lantern were com- pleted ; and about the same time the stalls of the choir were erected.
In 1349 the Lady Chapel was finished. In 1373 three windows on the south and two on th'e north side of the presbytery were re- built in the newer style, to agree with the adjoining building.
In 1380 the octngonal building and four angular turrets were erected on the original western tower. In 1405 it was thought necessary to strengthen the arches and piers which support the great tower, on account of this superstructure. This was done by casing them with stone : and in 1454 it became necessary to add still more to the strength of these piers and arches, and which w?« at that time more effectually performed.
In 1460 two more windows were inserted on the north side of the presbytery. In 148S the chapel of Bishop Alcock was erected, and in 1534 that of Bishop West ; since which nothing has been built, but many things destroyed. The cloisters were taken down in 1650, and irreparable mischief at the p-.me time done in various parts of the Cathedral. Since that period many and important have been the repairs, which time and accidents have rendered necessary. In 1662 the north wall of the nave was repaired. In 1669 the north-west angle of the north wing of the great transept fell down and was restored. In 1748 the spire was ordered to be taken down from the top of the great western tower, which was so much against the will of the inhabitants of Ely, that they petitioned to have it remain, which petition was granted, but the spire has since been removed. In 1762 the woodwork of the octagon and lantern were thoroughly and very cleverly repaired. In 1768 the roof of the presbytery WM repaired, and at the same time the upper part of the east end being
46 ELY CATHEDRAL.
two feet out of the perpendicular, was skilfully restored to its proper position by that most able mechanic and architect, Mr. Essex. In 1770 the choir was removed into the presbytery, by which all the interior effect of the Cathedral has been greatly improved. In 1801 the upper parts of the tower were repaired, and in the following year the roof of the Lady Chapel. In the same year the outside of the galilcc was restored and beautified, as was also the inside of the great tower. For the former part of the foregoing information we are indebted chiefly to Mr. Bentham's excellent history of this Cathedral, and for the latter to Mr. Miller's description of the same, than which no visitor can have a more faithful, useful, or pleasant guide in his hand, while he inspects this highly interesting and imposing edifice.
Few Cathedrals indeed have had the advantage of such an his- torian as Bcntham, and few historians have had such a subject for their investigation as Ely Cathedral presents. It is certainly one of the very first magnitude and importance. A more vast, magnificent, and beautiful display of ecclesiastical architecture, and especially of the different periods of the pointed style, can scarcely be con- ceived. The Norman portion of the building is late in its date, and lighter in its character than earlier examples of the same style, indeed, in many places it bears evident marks of transition from the round to the pointed style.
Of the various portions of the present Cathedral, then, the dates are well ascertained from authentic documents. This being the case, and the fact admitted that the pointed stylo continually pro- gressed all over England at least, and with nearly equal pace, it follows that the several portions of Ely Cathedral become valuable as criterions of tbo age of other buildings in this country, in the absence of more precise and certain evidence.
Of each of the three successive styles of Gothic architecture Ely possesses in its Cathedral Church a pure and perfect specimen ; pure as being free from all transition mixture, and perfect as to the design and execution of the detail. The galilce and the presby- tery were built when the first or early English style was settled and perfected ; the octagon, the three arches east of it, and the Lady Chapel, when the second or decorated English was in that state ; and Bishop Alcock's chapel, when the third, or perpendicular style, had reached the same.
ft 71
ELY CATHEDRAL. 47
It Has been observed that there is more variety of plan among the Cathedrals of the pointed style in England than among those of the same style in France. However this may be, there is certainly in every Cathedral in England something peculiar to itself, and this of Ely has more peculiarities than any other in England, for, first the great west tower, with its south wing, has no parallel in England. At Bangor, the Cathedral has indeed a tower at the west end, and so have the parish churches of England very generally, than which that Cathedral is nothing more in its external appearance ; and if the towers could be compared (which would be like comparing a giant to a dwarf, or a mountain to a mole hill), yet Bangor tower has no wing ; that feature is entirely peculiar to Ely Cathedral. Another peculiarity is the octagon with its lantern ; another, the unusual size and situation of the Lady Chapel ; and, lastly, the ante-choir or space between the octagon and the choir screen. This peculiarity indeed is of modern date, and no part of the original design. The want of cloisters and a chapter-house is an accidental circumstance; both once existed, as some remains of both, which are still visible, sufficiently prove.
Several different sorts of stone have been made use of in the building of this Cathedral, all of which must have been brought from various places, and some from considerable distances. There is besides in the construction of the interior detail a vast quantity of Purbcck marble, and of a soft stone of a chalky nature, which is known in this part of the country by the name of clunch.
From these general remarks we will now proceed to take a more particular survey of every part of this huge and solemn pile.
EXTERIOR.
The west front of a Cathedral is usually the most important and imposing portion of its exterior ; and had this of Ely Cathedral remained in its original state, nothing of the kind could have ex- ceeded it in impressive grandeur. But, alas! the north wing is gone; and the tower, by the additional octagon and turrets, already spoken of, being raised upon it, is become of a most disproportionate height. The galilee, also a most beautiful object in itself, helps to destroy the
43 ELY CATliEDJlAL.
harmony of the whole. But take that away, which formed no part of the original design ; take down also the octagonal addition to the tower with it* turrets, and erect the north wing exactly like the south which still remains, and a more august and striking fi^ade cannot be conceived. Such was the noble design of the architect, and for a few years it probably existed in that state. Is it ever likely to be seen so again ? Prudence may perhaps hereafter demand the demolition of the offensive octagon and turrets, and the sooner the better. But, alas ! the same motive must ever operate in these days against the re-edification of the north wing.
Geoffry Ridel, the third bishop, designed and lived to finish, nearly, the original west front. He died in 1189, and nothing but the battlements of the original tower were left for his successor Longchamp to erect. With respect to the upper portion of the lower and turrets above the original battlements, whether it was the work of the bishop or convent is not certain, it was injudicious on all accounts ; its injurious effects were very soon perceived, and vast sums were expended to counteract them at different times. This great superincumbent weight in all probability has caused the destruction of the north wing. Whenever the former shall be taken off, the materials should in all justness and fairness be employed in the re-conslruction of the latter. These wings of the great tower formed a sort of second transept to the church at that point : they had, and the south wing still has, polygonal turrets at the angles ; that at the south-west angle is nearly double the diameter of the other, though they are of equal height. They seem to be dodeca- gons engaged, that is, eight of their sides are external, and four within the walls of the .building which they thus flank. This wing with its turrets is covered all over with ranges of arches one above another; the three lowest are circular, the fourth are trefoil -headed, the fifth, and all above on the turrets, which rise considerably above the wing, arc pointed and profusely adorned with Norman mould- ings ; the wing and turrets are both embattled.
The western portico or galilec by which the Cathedral is entered is a beautiful example of the early English style, and being, as is generally agreed, the work of Bishop Eustachius, is a very early example of the perfect state of that style ; for Eustachius died in the year 1215, and therefore this work must have been finished at least
ELY CATUEDRAL. 49
five years before the present Cathedral of Salisbury was bcgua Within the large arch arc two smaller ones, feathered, renting on a single clustered column, which divides the entrance into two equal parts. The intervening space above the smaller arch is adorned with an elegant leafy pattern of open stone work, not unlike the tracery often found in the heads of windows belonging to the succeeding style of Gothic architecture. Above this portal are three tall lancet- headed windows of one light each, the centre one only a very little taller than the other two : the space on each side the windows and portal is adorned with four tiers of arches, supported on slender columns, and flanked by clustered buttresses terminated by plain conical pinnacles. It is surmounted also by an embattled parapet, the middle portion of which rises higher than the rest
The nave and transept, with their side aisles, are very nearly alike on both sides the Cathedral, the clerestory exactly so, viz., a plain parapet, projecting a little and supported by pilasters, dividing it into compartments, which are filled up with three round arches on slender cylindrical columns with plain capitals ; the middle one forms a window of one light, and is wider and rises higher than the others. The side aisles are embattled, and divided into the same number of compartments on the face of the wall as in the clerestory, but by slightly projecting buttresses instead of pilasters ; they arc also divided horizontally by a string course into two stories. The windows, with the exception of three on the south side of the nave (which are of the original form), are all insertions of later ages, some of decorated and some of perpendicular character.
The cloisters were on the south side of the nave, the north-east angle of them is still perfect ; and other portions in ruins are still visible in the dean's garden. Under the north-east angle of the cloisters is what is called the monk's entrance into the Cathedral, at the north-west end of the same is the prior's ; they arc both ot Norman architecture, the former richly sculptured, and the latter a still more magnificent and elaborate work of that style.
A little to the south of the cloister stood the chapter-house, of which only just enough remains to shew that it was a building coeval with the oldest part of the present Cathedral
The south and north fronts of the transept arc not exactly similar, the principal difference between them is in the gable portion of each.
VOL. II. H
50 *L* CATHEDRAL.
The south gable has one wide and low window of seven lights, with simple tracery in the head, and is sunk within a deep recess of the same ungraceful form. The north gable has two much better pro- portioned windows side by side, and of about the same age. The lower portions are of the original Norman work ; a slight difference exists between them, as there does also between the upper port of the turrets by which both fronts are flanked, which the spectator will detect, but which would take more room to describe than the difference deserves.
The octagon with itslantern, in the place of the old central tower, is quite unique. The extreme beauty and merit, however, of this portion of the Cathedral is observable chiefly from within. Exter- nally it is too wide and too low, and the lantern is not only disproportionately small, but being of wood, has no agreement with the massiveness and grandeur of the stone octagon, in connection with which it must always be viewed. The octagon is not equi- lateral, but is in fact a square with the corners cut off, the four broader sides correspond with the four arms (so to speak) of the Cathedral, and the four narrower cut off the corner made by the intersection of those arms, and are therefore visible down to the roof of the side aisles in each case. The octagon is only of one story above the roof, and is adorned with an arcade of pointed arches, feathered and canopied, some of which are pierced through and glazed to admit light : the broader sides have six, the narrower only three of such arches : it is also further adorned with an open stone parapet of beautiful design. The spaces below the arcades of the narrower sides are filled up with large and acutely-pointed windows of four lights each, with good flowing tracery in the heads of them. At the points where the external angles of the octagon would be, if the sides met, hexagonal embattled turrets rising above the parapet are cleverly inserted, so as to display three of their sides outwardly, which relieve the octagon of some part of its heavy appearance.
As soon as the south wing of the transept is passed, a succession of deeply-projecting buttresses and a crowd of crocketted pinnacles burst upon the view. The introduction of larger windows, a lighter •tyle of architecture, and stone vaulting, made these external sup- port! absolutely necessary. Had these props been nothing more than
•
BIT CATHEDRAL. 51
plain solid masonry sloping from the top to the bottom, they would have been equally useful ; but in that case all the external appear- ance would have been sacrificed to the beauty of the interior : to obviate this, the buttress is first of all broken into three or more stories ; that is, it slopes a little way, and then takes a perpendicular direction ; slopes again, and is perpendicular again : and so on till it projects as far as is needful for the safety of the building: then the buttress is surmounted with a pinnacle, oftentimes both panelled and crocketted, and in later times every portion of the buttress was panelled with feathered tracery and some figure set upon each break, or increase in the projection, and when the build- ing to be thus propped had also side aisles, the buttresses were built to the walls of them, and in order to support the clerestory walls above, what are called flying buttresses were adopted, which reach from those walls in a sloping direction to the buttresses of the side aisles below. These are also oftentimes adorned with panel- ling, and sometimes also, though not often in England, with beauti- ful open tracery ; and thus not only was every objection to these external props removed, but they themselves became a most con- spicuous addition to the external beauty of the fabric which they at the same time supported ; of this the south side of the choir and ante-choir of Ely Cathedral now under review is a splendid proof. The east end of the choir is of the same style with the rest of it It is divided into three stories, the lowest has three lancet-headed •windows side by side of one light each, and (what is rather singular) all of equal height. The next story contains five windows side by side of one light each, and pointed in the same manner, but in this instance the middle one rises higher than the one on each side of it, and these again than those beyond them. The third story, which is the gable itself, is adorned with three lancet windows of nearly equal height, which admit light between the roofs. Above these windows are three feathered panels deeply recessed ; the like are also on a smaller scale inserted in the two stories below. The gable point is adorned with an ornamented cross. This east end is also flanked with square turrets or buttresses, whose surfaces are enriched with deeply sunk and feathered panels. The eastern faces of the side aisles appear as wings to the east end of the choir ; the south wing has in it the window which lights Bishop West's chapel, of lal»
£2 FLY CATHEDRAL.
perpendicular character ; the north wing, a window of late decorated or of transition style from that to early perpendicular, which lights Bishop Alcock's chapel. The wall above the former window is plain solid masonry ; above the latter it is adorned with an arcade of lancet arches. Both wings are flanked with double buttresses at the angles, upon which is set an enormous octagonal pinnacle c rocketted. The north side of the choir and ante-choir is so nearly the same as the south side, that nothing need be said more upon the subject. Indeed the Lady Chapel being built parallel to it, and not much above forty feet from it, the north side of the choir is but little seen. The south-west angle of this beautiful chapel adjoins the north-east angle of the north wing of the transept. Such a situation for such an edifice is perhaps unique. The chapels dedicated to St. Mary were generally at the east end of the church, though sometimes at the side ; they were also usually of much less dimensions. The plan of this chapel is an oblong, having a very large window at the cast and west end, and five windows on each side ; the first window at the western extremity of the south side is indeed walled up, and under it is the entrance into the chapel from the north wing of the Cathedral transept. Between each win- dow is a projecting buttress, crowned with a richly-crocketted pin- nacle : at the corners of the chapel are double buttresses, on each of which is erected a pinnacle of much larger dimensions ; the east and west fronts are richly decorated with arcades and canopied niches ; and the gable point is adorned with a niche rising above the elegantly pierced parapet which runs all round the building.
Passing by the north side of the nave, which is too similar to the south side already described to need any further description, we come to the ruins of the north wing of the great west tower. It is generally believed that the weight of the octagon upon the tower caused the destruction of this north wing. By what still remains of it we may safely conclude that it was in all respects exactly similar to the south wing. Unfortunately it was never rebuilt, although it is quite evident that a building on the same spot, of different dimen- sions and style, was begun some years after the fall of the original wing ; that such a building was never completed is a subject of congratulation rather than regret. Nothing but tbe re-construction of a wing similar to the south wing can ever satisfy the eye of the
A.T3LE1
Zl.T CATHEDRAL. 5)
ant'quary, or the architect, or the visitor of correct taste. But alas I such persons are more likely to be called upon to deplore the lose of the south wing than to rejoice together over the rebuilding of the north, as it is now in a very tottering condition, and much defaced, by being propped, cramped, screwed, and tied together in every part, and in various ways.
INTERIOR.
The Cathedral is entered from the west through the galilce. The sides of this building internally arc occupied by two large pointed arches, comprehending under each two rows of smaller ones ; the upper of five, the lower of three, supported by very slender columns. In the upper row on each side, the middle arch has a cinquefoil head, and those on the sides of it such portions of the cinquefoil as bring them within the circumscribing arch. The lower rows have trcfoilcd heads, and all are decorated with that favourite moulding, which ia like a flower of four leaves, with its leaves turned backwards toward its stem. All the shafts arc of Purbeck marble, with wreathed capitals of flowers and foliage. Below the arches on each side arc .stone benches. Here the penitents used to sit, while they waited their re-admission into the church. The arch of entrance into the Cathedral is very similar to that by which the galilce is entered from •without. They both rest on ten slender columns, five on each side, while a middle column with detached shafts divides them into two smaller arches. From the galilce the visitor passes into the lower part of the tower, and from thence obtains a general view of the interior of the Cathedral, the effect of which is indeed sublime. The long and lofty nave, with its side ai.-les, opening into the ample octagon, beyond which the richly-decorated ante-choir, with its screen and organ, and over that and stretching far beyond it, the presen choir may all be seen at once, from underneath the tower, where the reader must now suppose himself to stand. Before we take him from that spot wo must acquaint him with the improvement* which have been made in this part of the building. In the year 1802 the old belfry floor, with the spars and beams for the bell ropes, were re- moved, and the magnificent arch by which the tower communicates with the nave then became visible in all its extent. Here also the reader may see what was done to strengthen the tower, after tho
54 BLY CATHEDRAL.
raising of the octagonal story upon it, he will observe that the four grand arches which support it are not what the external appearance of the tower has led him to expect ; they were once, however, of that sort of pointed arch used in Norman times, small examples of which are to be seen in abundance in the upper part of the tower; this fact is proved by the outward face of the western arch being still visible in its original form; indeed all the four arches remain, but are now concealed behind a thick casing of stone, -which was added in order to strengthen the arches, and enable them to bear the weight of the superaddcd octagon. This was done in the year 1405, and the arches of course arc of the form then in use, and the spaces between the piers consequently much contracted. The north and south arches are walled up to the top ; but in the stud and plaster work of the south arch there is a door, by which the south wing of the tower is entered.
The walls arc adorned with ranges of arches one above another of various dimensions and forms, some round, some pointed, and some intersecting ; in the east wall there is a semicircular archway ornamented with a zigzag moulding, which is now blocked up, and propped with an immense brick pier ; it is supposed that it once gave entrance to a chapel, which has been long since destroyed. There was formerly a communication between this wing of the tower and the bishop's palace by means of a gallery ; and it if conjectured that the bishops entered the Cathedral by this nearest point unseen, and under cover the whole way. This may in some measure account for the great display of architectural detail obser- vable in the interior of this part of the Cathedral. We will now conduct the reader back to the spot from whence he first beheld the general view of the whole interior, and describe more particu- larly first the nave and its side aisles.
The nave has in its length a semicircular arcade on each side of twelve arches supported on piers, constructed so as to agree with the several mouldings of the arches, and to appear as an assemblage of semi-cylindrical columns With very plain capitals ; the arches are somewhat more than semicircular, not forming however a greater arch than a semicircle but for a little way above the columns, they are rectilinear before they take the circular bend.
Above this is another arcade on each side of semicircular arches, resting on the same kind of supports, though not half the height of
Drawn byRG*r!and
BLT CATHEDRAL. 55
those below. Each arch of these arcades comprehends two small ones, supported by a single cylindrical column.
Above this arcade is a third, composed of three arches in each compartment, side by side, the middle one rising a little above the others, and containing a round-headed window of one light. The nave of Ely Cathedral is simple in its outline and vast in its dimen- sions ; the columns and arches may be said to be almost without ornament ; all that can be called ornament being merely a band of single billet moulding running the whole length between the first and second arcade, and a still more simple one of a semi-cylindrical form between the second and third, and at the top of all. The effect is very imposing altogether, but it is somewhat injured by the want of a stone vaulting. All is now open from the pavement to the leads ; in looking upwards the visitor is disappointed at seeing nothing but a set of rafters, which at so great a height appear not more substantial than those of an ordinary parish church or dwelling house; and as he passes along the nave will be led to say within himself, surely these solid walls and massive arcades were intended for a nobler purpose.
Persons, however, have been found to admire this timber roof, for its lightness and ingenious construction, and it may be in itself worthy of admiration, but it is totally out of place here ; and though some think that it adds to the lightness and loftiness of the nave, it is more generally thought that a plain stone vaulting would be a great improvement. Such a vaulting the side aisles of the nave do actually possess ; it is perfectly plain, and of the original Norman work. Under the windows of the side aisles runs an arcade of small semicircular arches, resting on pilasters.
The southern side aisle has three windows of the original form ; the first (beginning westward), the third, and the last but two ; all the rest of the windows in both side aisles arc of later ages. An interruption of the arcade under a window in the north aisle denotes the place where there was a door of communication with the parish church of St. Cross. This door was closed up above two hundred years ago, when the Lady Chapel was given, instead of that church, to the parish of the Holy Trinity.
At the west end of the same aisle, under an arch in the wall, is a rclique of antiquity deserving some notice. It is the lower part of a itone cross, with its square pedestal found many year* ago
56 ELY CATHEDRAL.
at Haddeuham, in the Isle of Ely, and placed here by Mr Beii- tham, the celebrated antiquary and historian of this Cathedral. The inscription on the pedestal is very legible : —
LUCEM TUAM OVINO DA DEUS ET REQUIEM. AMEN.
This Ovin, to whose memory the cross was erected, was steward to Queen Etheldreda, the foundress : it is therefore in all proba- bility a work of the end of the seventh, or at latest the beginning of the eighth century.
We come now to the octagon and lantern, a most singularly beautiful and skilful work ; in which solidity and gracefulness, mag* nificence and lightness are so happily blended together, that the spectator is at a loss to decide in which of these respects it is most worthy of admiration. The original square tower which stood here gave way and fell eastward, involving in its ruins the three first arches of the original choir. This happened in 1322, and though the building of the new Lady Chapel was begun the year before, yet the repair of this extensive mischief was instantly undertaken. The stone work of the octagon was finished in six years, and its wooden roof and lantern in fourteen more. Alan de "Walsingham, at that time sacrist, was the architect. The idea was altogether new, and the work remains to this day an undeniable proof of his exquisite skill and taste as an architect. By throwing the weight upon eight strong piers and arches, instead of four, he has given to this part of the Cathedral not only greater strength, but a magni- ficence of space and a gracefulness of form, such as is to be seen in no other Cathedral in England of the pointed style. An immense body of light is let down from the lantern above, and when the spectator raises his eyes upwards, he cannot but wonder at the skill which has contrived to suspend a very heavy timber roof over so wide an area without a pillar to assist in supporting it.
Before the downfall of the tower the choir was here, and here it was again placed as soon as the octagon was finished, which not only spoilt the effect of it, but also the effect of the general view of the whole interior of the Cathedral. Happily it was removed in the year 1769 to it* present situation ; a far better one for the purpose ; indeed, its former position was the worst that could be for singing, reading, and hearing.
ELY CATHEDRAL. 57
In the four greater sides of the octagon arc four lofty arches, which open into the four principal parts of the church. In the four shorter sides are four other arches, much lower than the others, opening obliquely into the side aisles, and having those windows above them which have been already described as visible externally, and coming down to the roof of the side aisles. All these arches are supported by those elegantly clustered columns which were then come into general use. Their capitals are composed of wreaths of flowers and foliage gracefully designed and exquisitely finished.
The wall between these arches and the windows above is orna- mented with trefoiled recesses, canopied, and having brackets, upon which doubtless once stood statues. The clustered columns from which the ribs of the vaulting of the octagon spring are not continued to the pavement, but seem to rise from the top of a number of niches richly canopied and crock eted, but now without statues ; these niches rest upon brackets, which are, each of them, supported by a small cluster of very slender columns, upon the capitals of which are represented in relief the most important events in the history of St. Ethcldreda. Beginning at the right side of the north-west arch, the first represents her reluctant marriage with £gfrid,king of Northum- berland : 2, her taking the veil in the monastery of Coldingham ; 8, her pilgrim's staff taking root while she slept by the way, and bearing leaves and shoots ; 4, her preservation, with her attendant virgins, on a rock surrounded by a miraculous inundation, when the king pursued her with his knights to carry her off from her monastery ; 5, her instalment as abbess of Ely ; 6, her death and burial ; 7, a legendary tale of one Brithstan, delivered from bonds by her merits after she was canonized ; 8, the translation of her body.
In the centre of the vaulting of the octagon is an aperture 30 feet wide, upon which the lantern is set. It is an exact octagon, having in each of its sides a sharp pointed window; the square-headed windows spoken of as being above these externally, are not visible within ; under the windows is a gallery, and under that carved panels. The vaulting of the ante-choir is lower than the arch which opens into it ; the intervening space is adorned with open feathered tracery, but the effect is not good. Although the ante- choir is now before us, and the organ screen, we must in passing to it look to the right and left to observe a little upon the transept.
VOL. II. X
68 ELY CATHEDRAL.
This is the most ancient portion of the Cathedral ; both wings of the transept have side aisles. The columns and arches are, generally speaking, like those of the nave ; in each of them, however, there is a simple cylindrical shaft, which occurs nowhere else in the building. The west side aisle of the north wing is open, that to the east is divided by walls behind the columns. In the south wing both side aisles are entirely closed up. The roof of both wings is of bare rafters, painted with flowers and other devices ; large figures of angels with wings expanded support the principals. The same simple mouldings occur here above the several tiers of arcades as in the nave.
Let us now contemplate the ante-choir : it is of that age when decoration was no longer confined to particular parts of the building, but scattered over the whole face of it ; but this is a singularly beau* tiful example of that style ; it has a rich, light, and gay appearance ; there is a magnificent display of decoration, but it cannot be said to be loaded with ornament.
The screen is an arcade of three pointed arches supported on slender clustered columns, through the middle arch is the entrance into the choir, and above the arcade is a gallery in which the organ is placed. The whole is of good Gothic architecture, and agrees very well with the portion of the Cathedral with which it is connected.
We now enter the choir, which was anciently called the presby- tery ; it is still known by that name, although, since the removal of the choir into it, it is more usually called the choir. The original choir extended no further in a straight line than the three archef»oi Bishop Hotham's work, it then became semicircular, and so termi- nated ; which was the form of the east end of all Norman churches. This semicircular termination was taken down in the year 1235 by Hughde Northwold,the eighth bishop of Ely, and this most beautiful addition of six arches, forming the present choir, was made and finished at his expense in seventeen years. At the dedication of it in 1252, the shrines and reliques of the canonized abbesses were removed into it ; Henry III. with his court were present at the ceremony, and were magnificently entertained by the bishop. It is in that style which architects have agreed to call the early English, and is a perfect example of it. The three arches of the ante-choir, the work of Bishop Hotham, which is also by general agreement called
XLT
THE
n»«w»
k— • 3kM» *j-' -J--
Z1LT
THE CHOIR
ELY CATHEDRAL. .'/I
decorated English, adjoins the work of Bishop Northwold, and the two styles being thus brought together in actual contact, the specta- tor has an opportunity of judging of the comparative merits of each. By the generality of judges the choir is preferred. There is a great abundance and variety of ornament, and all of the most elegant and graceful description ; but it is confined to its proper places, and not, as in the other style, spread indiscriminately over the whole surface. The ante-choir dazzles and surprises the spectator, the choir delights and charms him. The eye is so caught by the detail of tho ante- choir, that the effect as a whole is lost, and the eye soon becomes tired of gazing upon mere detail ; in the choir it rests with satisfaction and delight, and is never weary of beholding, and is equally fascinated by contemplating it as a whole, and by dwelling upon its various and graceful embellishments. The superiority of this style over the other is perhaps most of all conspicuous in the vaulting, which is simple and majestic ; its plain ribs diverge from their imposts, and terminate in a longitudinal midline, running from west to east, and ornamented with figures and flowers, where the springers meet it, while the ribs in the vaulting of the ante-choir cross each other continually, and spread themselves into many in- tricate forms, which have no meaning, and destroy tho harmony of the whole.
The cast end of the choir is pre-eminently beautiful : the three lower windows are of one light each, side by side, and (as was before observed, in speaking of their external appearance) of equal height, lancet-headed and lofty. The upper windows are five in cumber, of one light each, whose forms and proportions have been already stated ; these, as well as the window beneath, are, as it were, deeply recessed within corresponding arcades, formed by a profu- sion of mouldings, resting on slender columns, with fillets and leafy capitals, and intermixed like the mouldings of the arches with alter- nate rows of flowery wreaths. The effect of these windows thus adorned is surely far better than that of one huge window filling up the whole end, which was universally adopted in the succeeding style of Gothic architecture ; and a building whose decoration is confined to certain places and within just proportions, must produce a more sublime and majestic effect than one which is equally embel- lished in every part The early English style, however, with all its
CO ELY CATHEDRAL.
gracefulness and elegance, had but a short reign ; it was soon aban- doned for another, which, however gorgeous and dazzling, is far in- ferior as to general effect. Some architects, acknowledging the supe- riority of the early English over that which immediately succeeded it, have at tempted to account for its abandonment by the supposition that it was found to be wanting in strength and solidity. This sup- position, however, can hardly be supported, when it is recollected that the works in the early English style were scarcely eighty years old when the new style was universally adopted, and that they could not then exhibit any sign of weakness or decay, since the very same works are still in existence, are now very little short of six hundred years old, and in several instances, as well as in the case of the choir of Ely, have not needed any more important repairs than those which have taken place in the memory of some persons who are yet living. The east end of the choir was indeed nearly two feet out of the perpendicular, when Mr. Essex, in the year 1768, by means of screws, effectually restored it to its proper position. The timber roof was also at the same time repaired, which might have been necessary in any other style of architecture, and this is all that has been done to this portion of the Cathedral since it was erected. The true cause therefore of the abandonment of the early English style may be found in that excessive love of novelty which is inherent in human nature. The windows of the choir were once adorned with painted glass, which was of course demolished by the Puritans. Bishop Mawson had agreed with an artist to fill them with modem stained glass, the good bishop, however, died before it was put up; indeed it is said that the artist was not able to fulfil his contract : only the figure of St. Peter and some of the armorial bearings of the prebendaries of that day were finished and put up. The stalls of the choir arc beautiful examples of that sort of carving in wood which prevailed at the time when the ante-choir was erected They were designed by Alan de Walsingham, the architect of the octagon. When they were removed to their present situation, they were found to be decayed in some places, but they have been so well restored, that it is impossible to discover the new from the old work. The altar-screen is of modern wood-work, and not very good in design, nor correct in its imitation of Gothic. There is no bi»Loi/s throne in the choir ; the abbey having been converted
•;' :: :i :: •..:_
9 «•
4 •
•t •
i .;, A •t*
A
B W
r
D 1)
KK
¥ f
O
Mil I
K L
M M N O P
f»Xrf Tht
75W y.'-t*-
\arr &•
Ttu threat Thtturft .y/i// -tfu>ir iHntrt' .litlrjc Ihnilii i)iiif>r-i
R" Krjtf d' Lifinin/ I'fjrtrtAt. Stx. 'Saufh f'nlntnff Muu"
|
* |
4 |
*• |
|
• |
• |
< |
|
• |
• |
4 |
|
• |
* |
• |
|
• |
• |
* |
|
+ |
• |
t |
|
9 |
» |
t |
|
19 C' |
||
|
t |
• |
t |
|
J> |
1) |
it |
|
• |
• |
• |
|
+ |
• |
t |
|
i |
||
|
• |
• |
t |
|
* |
* |
-* |
tt*>
: :AWT-
ELY CATHEDRAL. Gl
into a see, and the last abbot becoming the first bishop, he kept his seat after he had changed his title and dignity, and every succeeding bishop has continued to sit in the same place, viz., on the right-hand side of the entrance. The prior still kept his place on the left-hand side, and continued to do so when the last prior became the first dean, and every succeding dean has occupied the same scat.
The presbytery was once filled with the monuments of bishops, priors, and deans ; all these have been removed except two, that of Bishop Gray, a flat stone (a part only of a noble monument), under the arch leading into the north aisle, and that of Cardinal de Luxem- burg, Archbishop of Rouen, and perpetual administrator of the dio- cese of Ely, which is on the south side of the altar, concealed by the screen ; its decayed and ruined condition is said to have prevented its removal ; it had also been very roughly handled by the Puritans.
In the side aisles the slender columns, detached shafts, and lancet-headed windows of the early English style are everywhere to be seen ; at the cast end of the north aisle is Bishop Alcock's chapel, a rich but heavy specimen of the florid, or, as it is now called the perpendicidar Gothic. At the cast end of the south aisle is the chapel of Bishop West, a delicate and elegant example of the latest period of the perpendicular, but not altogether free from some approach to the revived Italian style. Both these chapels are lamentably mutilated.
We will conclude our account of the interiorof this Cathedral with a few remarks upon the Lady Chapel, now the church of Trinity parish, in Ely. The principal merit of this beautiful edifice is its fine proportions. The windows are large, divided into many lights, with elaborate tracery in their upper portions, especially those of the east and west ends ; the vaulting and the walls are, like Bishop Hotham's contemporary work in the ante -choir, profusely decorated in every part, and as free also as that from any heaviness of effect.
The Cathedral Church is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Eihel- dreda. Its interior dimensions are as follows, viz , whole length from west to east, 517 feet ; breadth of nave and side aisles, 73 feet j length of transept from north to south, 179 feet 6 inches ; height of the vaulting of choir, 70 feet; Lady Chapel 100 feet long, 46 broad, and 60 high.
Besides the buhop, the Cathedral establishment consist* of a
02 ELY CATHEDRAL.
dean, an archdeacon, and eight prebendaries, several minor canons, singing men, choristers, vergers, and an organist. In the time of Henry VIIL the bishopric was stated to be worth £2134 18*. 6i<J. per annum , the present yearly value, as returned by the late bishop to his Majesty's Commissioners, is £11,105. The bishop of Ely, besides the whole patronage of the Cathedral, except the appoint- ment of the dean, had in the Isle abundance of patent offices at his disposal, and was vested with greater prerogatives than any other bishop in the kingdom, except Durham. By the late Act of Parliament, however, the future bishops of Ely and Durham will be shorn of all their civil honours and privileges, to the great comfort of them both, as their worldly cares will be thereby greatly dimi- nished, and they will be able to devote themselves, equally with their brethren the other bishops, more exclusively to the spiritual concerns of their dioceses. The bishops of Ely, will, however, continue to have considerable power and patronage in the University of Cambridge. They are, as such, visitors of four colleges, patrons of the mastership and one fellowship in Jesus College, choose one out of two nominated by the college to be the master of St. Peter's College, and the fellows therein : the Bishop of Ely has also nearly one hundred livings in his gift. The dean and chapter of Ely pay a pension to the bishop of £135 Is. 3\d. The tenths also of the whole diocese were long since granted to the bishop, and are still paid to him ; but the whole amount of them is somewhat less than the sum paid to him by the dean and chapter.
The original diocese of Ely consisted of all Cambridgeshire, except a small portion of it which belonged to the diocese of Norwich, as much too small as that of Lincoln was too large. As decided friends to episcopacy on the highest grounds, we rejoice that by the same Act which relieves the Bishop of Ely from the burden of many temporal concerns, his episcopal jurisdiction will be increased, and from the same source out of which it was first taken.
The Act states, that the diocese of Ely shall be increased by the counties of Huntingdon and Bedford, in Lincoln diocese, the deaneries of Lynn and Fincham, in the county of Norfolk, and diocese of Norwich, and by the archdeaconry of Sudbury in the county of Suffolk, and diocese of Norwich, with the exception
«LY CATHEDRAL. <J3
of the deaneries of Sudbury, Stow, and Hartismere, and by that part of the county of Cambridge which is now in the diocese of Norwich.
Our limits will not allow us to give much more than a bare list of the names of the most eminent bishops who have filled this see from its foundation to the present time.
William Longchamp, elected in 1189, was chancellor of Eng- land, Pope's legate, chief justiciary of England, and regent of the kingdom during the absence of Richard I. He was succeeded by Eustachius in 1197, who was also chancellor of England. William de Kilkenny, elected in 1254, chancellor of England also. Hugh de Balsham,electedin 1257,founded St. Peter's College, in Cambridge. He was in 1286 succeeded by John de Kirkcby, who was both chancellor and treasurer of England. In 1319 John Hotham was elected, and was also chancellor both of England and of the Ex- chequer. Simon Langham, elected in 1302. was treasurer nnd chancellor of England, and a cardinal ; he was afterwards trans- lated to Canterbury. Thomas de Arundcl, elected 1374, was chancellor of England, and translated first to York, and from thence to Canterbury. Lewis de Luxemburg was elected in 1438, and held this bishopric by a dispensation from the Pope, being at the same time Archbishop of Rouen and a cardinal. He was succeeded by Thomas Bouchier, who was chancellor of England, and afterwards translated to Canterbury. In 1473 John Morton was elected, and became chancellor of England, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was succeeded by John Alcock in 1486, who was also chancellor of England, and founder of Jesus College, in Cambridge. In 1534 Thomas Goodrich was elected, being the last Bishop of Ely who was chancellor of England. He was a zealous reformer, and was succeeded by one of the opposite persuasion in 1554, who had previously been bishop both of West- minster and Norwich, and was deprived under Queen Elizabeth. Matthew Wren, elected in 1638, had been previously Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, Dean of Windsor, Bishop of Hereford and of Norwich. He was a great sufferer in the Rebellion and Usurpation, but outlived both. Francis Turner, elected in 1684, had been Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, Dean of Windsor, and Bishop of Rochester. He was deprived, in 1690, as
G4 ELY CAT11LUUAL.
a Nonjuror, and succeeded by Simon Patrick in 1G91, who had been first Dean of Peterborough, and afterwards Bishop of Chichcster. It was after he was translated to Ely that he began and finished his Commentary on the Scriptures, which will make his name famous, perhaps, to the end of time. In 1754 Mathias Mawson was elected Bishop of Ely : he was a member of Corpus Christ! College, in the University of Cambridge, of which society he became first a fellow, and afterwards master. In 1734 he was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, but conceiving that Dr. It a mile (afterwards Bishop of Derry) had been injuriously set aside from that see, he refused to accept it under these circum- stances. In 1738 he was appointed to Llandaff, and two years after translated to Chichcstcr ; while bishop of that see he gave the present throne in the choir of that Cathedral, and proposed to re- pair and embellish the whole choir, but being translated to Ely in the year 1754, he was obliged to abandon his design, in order to give himself entirely to his newly-acquired diocese. He was a great benefactor to the Isle of Ely, by suggesting and supporting plans of roads and embankments in the fens, by which tha( district was essentially improved. He was also a great benefactor to the see of Ely, inasmuch as he nearly rebuilt the palace. That he was an encourager of useful learning and sound religious education, his founding twelve scholarships in his own college is a solid and ample proof, nor should it be forgotten that he both appreciated and rewarded the learning and diligence of the great historian of Ely, Mr. Bentham, with a prebendal stall in the Cathedral. Bishop Mawson died in the year 1777, at an advanced age, and was buried in the Cathedral :' he was highly esteemed and beloved in his life, and in his death as much regretted and lamented.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
THE sec of Peterborough is comparatively of modern date. It is one of those erected by Henry VIII. soon after the dissolution of the abbey. The charter by which it was erected into a bishopric bears date September 4, 1541, and before the end of the same year John Chambers, the last abbot, was chosen first bishop, and the abbey church became from that time the Cathedral.
No part, however, of the present fabric has been built since it became a Cathedral, and therefore in giving its history, we must necessarily begin with the history of the famous monastery to which it once belonged.
The name of the place was originally Medeshamsted, from a pit in the river Nen called Medeswell, which tradition says was a little below the present bridge. But this well, together with another called St. Lawrence's, of great celebrity in former days for its miraculous properties, is now entirely lost The locality of the latter indeed is only guessed at by Gunton in his valuable history of this once abbey and now Cathedral Church. His conjecture is a very reasonable one ; there was a chapel dedicated to St. Lawrence, the chancel of which is yet standing, and forms the hall of one of the prebcndal houses : near the chapel must have been the well of St. Lawrence, if the chapel itself was not built over it, as was often the case with wells supposed to be possessed of supernatural virtues.
Medeshamsted being a part of the county of Northampton was of course within the kingdom of Mercia. Penda is reckoned by most antiquaries to have been the first king of the Mercians. He had five children, three sons, Peada, Wulfere, and Etheldred, and two daughters, Kyneburga and Kyneswitha. Pcnda being dead, was succeeded by his eldest son Peada, who in the year 656, or as some say 655, founded the monastery of Medeshamsted ; the stone of which it was built was certainly brought from Barnack, near Bur- leigh, in the same county, and those laid in the foundation, are said to have been of so large a size, that eight yoke of oxen could with difficulty draw one of them. But Peada did not live to finish his
VOL. II. K
66 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
•work, for his wife Alfleda (unmindful of the pious memory of her grandfather Oswald, the martyred king of Northumberland, kin<r Oswine her father, and king Alfred her brother), betrayed him to death at the feast of Easter, after he had reigned only four years ; when his crown and kingdom descended to Wulfere his next brother. Wulfere was converted and baptized by Finanus, a Scotch bishop, and upon his coming to the throne vowed to purge his king- dom from idolatry, and to the utmost of his power promote the Christian religion. He married Ermenilda, daughter of Egbert, king of Kent, a very virtuous and pious princess, who was afterwards canonized ; on this occasion he solemnly repeated his vow, which however not long afterwards he entirely neglected to fulfil, through the persuasion of his steward Werbode, so that the Christian reli- gion rapidly declined, and heathenism again prevailed. By his wife he had two sons, Wulfade and Rufinc, who were both converted to the Christian faith by St. Chad. Their conversion was concealed from their father for some time, but they were betrayed at last by the same Werbode, who so inflamed the king against his sons, that having watched them both into an oratory, slew them with his own hands, whilst they were praying before the altar. Werbode and the king then demolished the place, and left the bodies of the murdered princes buried in the rubbish. Soon after this Werbodo is said to have hanged himself, and king Wulfere being deeply wounded in conscience, consulted his queen Ermenilda, who advised him to go to St. Chad, to which he consented ; and having made a full confession of his heavy crimes, and manifested his repentance, he was readmitted into the bosom of the church, and upon his pro* mising to perform any penance St. Chad should think fit to impose upon him, he was only desired by that good man to be ever mindful of his former vows in future, and so to restore the Christian religion in his kingdom, to repair its ruined temples, and to build new ones. The monastery of Medeshamstcd, begun by his brother, became, as we may well suppose, the object from henceforth of Wulfcre's peculiar care and favour. In his zealous endeavours to complete it, he was assisted by his brother Etheldred, and his sisters Kyneburga and Kyneswitha. When finished, he dedicated it to St. Peter, and on this account in after times the place obtained the name of Peter- borough, and lost its original appellation of Medeshamsted. At the
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 67
same time King Wulfere bestowed upon this abbey many great and valuable privileges and immunities, and very large possessions. The bounds of its jurisdiction established by him were from Croy- land on the east, to Walmesford, or Wansford Bridge on the west, and so northward to Easton and Stamford, and all along by the river Welland to Croyland again ; as it may be seen in the charter Vfhich he scaled and confirmed in the presence of kings, nobles, and bishops, in the year 664, and the seventh of his reign.
King Wulfere died without issue, in what year is not exactly known ; but his brother Ethelred succeeded him both in his throne and in his good affection for the monastry of Medcshamsted. Ethelred reigned thirty years, and then laid down his crown and sceptre, and became first a monk, and afterwards abbot of Bardney, according to William of Malmsbury, about the year 704. But (observes Gunton), speaking of the completion of the monastery of Medeshamsted, the nest being thus fitted and prepared, care was taken to furnish it with birds : and first with an abbot, who should become a sort of call bird to others, till the nest was full.
The first abbot was Saxulfus, an earl, who thought it no degra- dation to be the head of the religious establishment in this place. His reputation for piety was very great, so that he soon gathered a convent of monks, who flocked to him from all parts. He presided over this monastery with great fidelity and zeal for thirteen years and was then elected bishop of Durham, and was succeeded by Cuthbaldus, one of the monks, who from his extraordinary sanctity, was thought the fittest person to fill the place and dignity thus vacated.
The monastery continued in a flourishing condition till the year 870, when the Danes, having burnt down Croyland Abbey, and put to death the monks there, proceeded to Medeshamsted, slew both the abbot and the monks, eighty-four in number, set fire to the con- vent, and utterly destroyed the church, the altars, monuments, and library, with all the adjacent buildings. At this time llcdda was abbot: the fire continued burning for fifteen days together; the sight was terrible, and the desolation complete. In this ruinous condition the monastery remained for a whole century, till the year 970, when King Edgar rebuilt it, and called together the princcs,nobU's,bishops, and abbots of his kingdom to be present with him at its consecration. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and on this occasion, and for this
68 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
reason, the name of the place was changed from Medcshamsted to Peterborough. Edgar procured Adulphus his chancellor to be elected abbot of the re-edified monastery, who after having enjoyed this dignity for twenty years, was advanced to higher places, being first promoted to the see of Worcester, and afterwards translated to the archiepiscopal sec of York. Kenulphus, a learned, eloquent and pious man, succeeded him, who inclosed the monastery with a wall, and was afterwards elected Bishop of Winchester.
Leofric, a person of the blood royal, and in great favour with the king, became abbot a little before the Norman conquest, and was a great benefactor to the abbey. His means must have been ample enough, for he held at the same time with this of Peterborough four other abbeys, viz. Burton, Coventry, Croyland, and Thorney. He was however more fitted to be a soldier than a churchman, as he put himself at the head of the English army to oppose William the Conqueror, but sickness obliged him soon after to return to the monastery, where he died on the first of November, in the year 106G*
Thorold was elected abbot in 10G9, and has made his name infamous as a waster of the abbey goods ; when he entered upon his office they were valued at £1500, and when he died they were reduced in value to £500. Soon after he was elected he became weary of his situation, and contrived to obtain the bishopric of Beauvais, in France, and carried off with him many things which belonged to the abbey of Peterborough. He was, however, so unwelcome to the church of Beauvais, that he was expelled thence in four days after his arrival. He then desired nothing so much as to return to his former situation, and by large presents to the king he was reinstated in the abbacy of Peterborough.
In the year 1116 a great fire happened, which was all but as destructive as that which was lighted by the Danes ; how it origi- nated historians have not informed us, but they tell us gravely that it was a judgment upon the abbot, who was an impetuous man, and had been cursing and blaspheming all the day because a fire in his lodgings would not burn ; at length he concluded his malediction upon it with these words, " The Devil kindle thee!" upon which the whole monastery was in ablaze, and the church rebuilt by King Edgar destroyed by the conflagration.
In the month of March Ill7, John dc Sais, at that time abbot,
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 'i »
laid the foundation of a new church, but did not live to finish it The work was interrupted at his death, which happened in the year 1125, and for the three years after that event, during which time the place of abbot was vacant ; neither did the work go on under the next abbot, Henry de Angeli, who held the place for five years. But in the year 1133, Martin dc Vecti was elected abbot, who pro- ceeded with the work of re-edification with the greatest assiduity, and had the satisfaction of seeing it completed. It was re-dedicated to St. Peter in the year 1140 according to some, or in 1143 accord- ing to others. This ceremony was performed with the greatest pomp in the presence of the Bishop of Lincoln, the abbots of Croyland, Thorncy, and Ramsay, many barons and knights, and a vast number of inferior ecclesiastics.
This, which may be called the third abbey church, is in great measure still remaining, and forms the present Cathedral.
Martin de Vecti's church, however, has undergone several im- portant alterations, and received some considerable additions. We find that abbot William de Waterville, who was deposed in 1175, after governing the establishment for twenty years, almost rebuilt the transept and great central tower, added the cloisters, and founded a chapel, which he dedicated to St. Thomas-a-Beckct His successor, Benedict, prior of Canterbury, who was elected in 1177, finished these works, and built the nave of the church after a better manner than before, from the central tower to the porch. But .is the church is said to have been entirely finished and dedi- cated in the year 1143, and nothing disastrous is recorded to have happened to the building after that period, we cannot suppose that the works of abbots William and Benedict amounted to a total re- edification of the nave and transept, which had only been finished between thirty and forty years by Mai tin de Vecti. Possibly there- fore they made considerable alterations in these portions of the church, according to the taste of the times ; perhaps raised the clerestory, or at least enlarged the windows, and gave a different form to them. Perhaps Benedict also gave a new roof to the nave ; the one which still exists is certainly as old as his time.
Abbot Robert de Lyndsey after this gave glass to about thirty of the windows in the church, which having been left unfinished by his predecessor had till now been stuffed with straw.
70 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL,
Of the west front no date has been assigned, and no name men- tioned of the benefactor or architect. In the absence of all docu- mentary evidence, Mr. Britton assigns this most magnificent part of the present Cathedral to abbots Acharias and Robert de Lyndsey, whose united government of the abbey comprised a period of twenty- two yeprs, viz. from the year 1200 to the year 1222.
Richard de London elected abbot in the year 1273, erected the great steeple where the bells hang. The Lady Chapel, which was destroyed in Cromwell's time, was built by abbot William Parys.
Robert Kirton, elected abbot in the year 1496, erected the building at the cast end of the church, which was in Gunton's time known principally by the name of the new building. Abbot Robert died in the year 1528, and was succeeded by John Chambers, the last abbot, who in the year 1589 surrendered the abbey to king Henry VIII., and had a pension assigned him of £266 13s. 4d. per annum, which he afterwards resigned upon being appointed the first bishop of Peterborough, which happened only two years after the suppression of the abbey.
It is said that Henry VIII. spared this abbey church, and made it a Cathedral, an account of the remains of his first queen, Cathe- rine, which still repose within its walls. Those of Mary queen of Scots, which were also first interred here, were afterwards re- moved by her son James I. and again interred at Westminster, where a magnificent monument is erected to her memory. Pity it is, says Brown Willis, that Henry VIII. did not likewise spare another magnificent abbey, that of St. Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, for the sake of another queen buried there, in his lifetime, viz., his own sister Mary, the French queen.
Great and extraordinary were the privileges which this monastery enjoyed from the earliest times, through the favour of kings, popes, princes, and nobles. It is said that the documents confirming these privileges were preserved during the Danish invasion by the pious care of some of the monks, and were discovered and exhibited to King Edgar at the dedication of the new church, who wept for joy that he had a second Rome in his own kingdom ; for one of the privileges was, that if any desired to visit Rome, and could not, by reason of the great distance or any other impediment, it should suf- fice to visit thit abbey ; here they may pay their vows, obtain abso-
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 71
lution, and receive the apostolical blessing. So great, indeed, was the esteem in which this abbey was held, that whoever came, whether king, bishop, baron, abbot, or knight, they took off their shoes at the gate of the monastery, and entered its sacred precincts bare- foot, and when any of the monks were seen in the neighbouring villages, they were treated with the profoundest reverence.
The abbots were called to parliament in the reign of Henry III., but had not the honour of wearing the mitre till the year 1400. It was a beuedictine abbey, in which at the time of the dissolution there were forty monks. It was a very healthy establishment, though there were others in the kingdom still more so. Its posses- sions were valued at £1721 14s. per annum, according to Dugdale, and £1972 7s. according to Speed.
When Henry VIII. converted the abbey into a Cathedral, he placed therein a bishop, a dean, six prebendaries, a divinity reader, eight minor canons, the same number of lay-clerks or singing-men, the like number of choristers, and a master over them : two other school masters, twenty scholars, six alms men, and some inferior officers.
In the king's books the bishopric is charged at £4141 7s. 8d. per annum, and the gross annual value of the same, as returned by the present bishop to the commissioners, is £3518.
Since it became a Cathedral this church has suffered much and gained little till within the last few years, when the late dean, Dr. Monk, now Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, proposed and liberally supported a subscription for the refitting of the choir, but of this we shall take occasion to speak in its proper place. We repeat that this Cathedral suffered most lamentably in Cromwell's time, the cloisters being then destroyed, together with many of the adjacent buildings, and no doubt the whole of this magnificent fabric would have soon perished, had not the church been re-established, with the restoration of the king to the throne of this kingdom. For by an act passed August 19th, 1651, the minster (as it was then called) was granted to the inhabitants of Peterborough both for a place of worship and for a workhouse, at the same time, to employ the poorer sort in manufactures — the inhabitants, at their own cosU and charges, repairing and maintaining the same.
Such, then, is the history of the abbey, and origin of the see of
7~ PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
Peterborough. We come now to speak more particularly of the Cathedral itself, of the several portions of which we have given the dates, as far as they can be ascertained cither by documentary or architectural evidence. The situation of the Cathedral is something like that of Ely, placed on gently rising ground, and surrounded by a vast extent of level country, which is oftentimes inundated. Its appearance at a distance is not very prepossessing. Having no tower or spire, or any important feature which rises much above the roof ridge, it looks a huge heavy lump of building when it first breaks upon the view, and of no describablc form or shape. On a nearer approach, however, the mass appears broken by bold projections. The transept and low central tower, with its angular turrets, are plainly discernible, and, within a mile, the magnificent western fa9adc, with its tower, turrets, pinnacles, and gables, is seen rising majestically far above the chimneys of the highest houses of the city.
EXTERIOR.
The Cathedral of Peterborough is far less encumbered by adjacent buildings than most others. The precincts are entered from the town under a gothic gateway, when the visitor has the most superb and imposing portion of the fabric immediately before him, viz., the west front, to which there is nothing superior in gothic architecture, if there be anything equal. If there be anything in England that can be brought into competititionwith it, it is the west front of Wells Cathedral — if anything in France, it is the west front of Rheims. In respect to extent they may vie with Peterborough, in respect to the quantity of decoration they may, and Rheims certainly does exceed it, but in respect to form, proportion, and general effect, the west front of Peterborough is far superior to them both, and perhaps is unrivalled in the world. The west fronts of Rheims and Peterborough have been thought to resemble each other by some, but it would puzzle a good gothic architect to discover the resemblance. Rheims has, indeed, three deep-pointed portals side by side, the middle one being higher and wider than the other two, and Peterborough has three lofty arches side by side, of equal height, and supported on clustered columns ; so that unless a colonnade can be said to be like a door (for it is not pretended
•WEST TROUT
PI 75.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 73
that there exists any other point of resemblance), these two west fronts cannot be said to be in the least degree alike.
But what a grand conception is here, the front of the temple of the Deity is adorned with a gigantic and finely-proportioned portico, flanked with towers adorned with lofty pinnacles; such is the design. The ornamental detail is both well selected and judiciously applied, and of the effect of the whole, it is not too much to say, that it is not in the power of the pencil or the pen to do it justice ; it must be seen to be duly appreciated. Strictly speaking, the west front is per- fectly finished and perfectly uniform ; but behind it are two towers, one of which is finished, while the other wants the upper story. The finished one appears over the gable towards the north, and being seen in connection with the west front, seems to form a part of it ; but the other to the south not being seen above the corresponding gable gives from some points of view an unfinished and irregular appearance to the whole, and injures the effect. Never- thelcss it must be confessed that the first view of this facade is striking and imposing in an unusual degree. There is a solemnity in the effect which it produces such as is observable in no other Cathedral, and which is not unmixed with awe. The architects of the thirteenth century certainly understood better what a temple for the Deity ought to be, than any that have appeared before or since from the first establishment of Christianity to the present times.
It is with reluctance we quit this most attractive portion of Peterborough Cathedral, to describe the rest of its exterior; which, however, is not wanting in any part of it in respect of dig- nity and importance. Let us then turn round the corner of the north-west tower, and the whole length of the nave with the side aisle, north wing of the transept and central tower, burst upon the view ; all in the same style originally, and all altered as to the lower windows in the same taste at a subsequent period. Some of these windows had been stopped up with plaster, but the late dean, Dr. Monk, had then re-opened with the best effect both externally and internally ; the dean also ornamented the ground on this side of the Cathedral, and all round the east end, by tastefully laying it out in flower beds and walks, and planting trees and shrubs : it had before the character of a common churchyard, and was not kept io the very best order.
VOL. II. l
74 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
The north front of ihc transept has three rows of windows, ono above another, and three in each row, and one single window above all in the gable ; it is also adorned with two rows of arcades, one above the second tier of windows and one above the third, running under the base of the gable. This front is also flanked by turrets, which are square, as high as the upper row of windows, and octa- gonal in their uppor portions, which rise to the height of the gable point, and are finished with battlements.
Before we pass this front, it will be well to look back towards the west end of the nave, and call the reader's attention to the tower (before mentioned as appearing above the portico of the west facade), and to the adjacent portions of the fabric. It will be here perceived how much wider the facade is, not only than the nave, but also than even the building which forms at that point a sort of second transept. The tower flanks the nave to the north, and beyond the tower is a short transept, whose north front is adorned with a large and beautiful pointed window of decorated Gothic, and flanked with towers similar to those of the north front of the greater transept.
Passing now the north wing of the transept, we have the choir and building to the east of it in view; to the east side of the transept, both north and south wing of it, is attached a side aisle. The choir with its side aisle is nearly of the same age and style of architecture with the nave and transept, and similar alterations have been made in the windows. The choir ends circularly, plainly indicating its Norman origin, but at the points where the circular wall begins on each side are built square buttresses engaged in the walls, which at the point where they rise above the parapet become octangular, and are terminated by plain spires.
The beautiful building which surrounds the circular termination of the choir is of an oblong form, having four pointed windows of four lights each, with perpendicular tracery in the sides of it to the north and south, and five of such windows in the length towards the east ; between the windows are buttresses with statues in the place of pinnacles; and an elegantly pierced and embattled parapet, very similar to that of King's College Chapel, in Cambridge, runs all round the building.
The south side of the choir is too similar to the north to need any particular description of it; the south wing of the transept is enclosed
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 75
within a garden of one of the members of the Cathedral, and this in the only point of the whole exterior of the fabric which it not open. This front of the transept is also so like the other that nothing more need be said upon the subject. With regard to the south side of the Have the same is true, and the south wing of the less or western transept differs from the north only in not having its tower com- pleted : the upper story is wanting ; whether it was ever built does not seem certain ; and is now nearly the only thing wanting to make Peterborough Cathedral both perfect and uniform in every respect.
The central tower, or lantern, as it is called, alone remains to be noticed. The best view of it is obtained from a spot a few paces from the building to the north-cast, and is given in one of the accompanying plates. It has been greatly metamorphosed since it was erected, and received additions within the memory of many yet living, which have greatly disfigured it ; we allude to the octagonal turrets at the four corners, which have been carried up to a most disproportionate height above the embattled parapet of the tower. The tower itself was originally much lower, and plainer ; when it was altered to its present state is not precisely known, but by the windows and panelling, and other detail upon its surface, we may conclude that it is about the same date with the porch at the west end.
We will now conduct the reader back to the matchless west front, and through the porch, inserted between the clustered columns which support the centre arch of this sublime arcade, introduce him at once into the
INTERIOR.
On entering the Cathedral, to the right and left is the west transept, of the same age and style of architecture with the west front, which forms as it were a screen before it. As far as fho internal view is concerned, the towers of this transept are finished, and are exactly alike ; lofty, well-proportioned, pointed arches, open into the nave on the one hand, and into the short wings of the tran- sept on the other, so as to give an uninterrupted view of the whole of this west transept on first entering the Cathedral, as well as of
76 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
the nave and choir, as far as the latter is visible, over the top of the organ screen. This general view of the interior is very grand and imposing. The dimensions, simplicity, and symmetry of the nave are most remarkable. Here we find vastness, solidity, and massive- ness combined with a degree of lightness of effect which is unusual in buildings of this age, and of which we should hardly have sup- posed the Norman style of architecture capable. This is mainly to be attributed to the more than ordinary span of the arches both of the lower arcade and of the open triforium immediately over it.1 The arch mouldings of the lower arcade are bold and simple, but more in number than is usual, and the columns are broken into more than the usual number of members, though their bases and capitals are exceedingly plain. The arches of the triforium are of equal span with those below, and are adorned with the zigzag moulding ; within the larger are two smaller archcs,semicircular also, resting on a short cylindrical column with plain capital. The upper triforium, or clerestory, is composed of a succession of semicircular arches, three together in each compartment, the middle one rising higher than those on each side, and resting on two short cylindrical columns, with simple capitals ; the three arches are comprised within the same space as each single arch of the lower triforium and nave. Behind the middle arch of the three is a round-headed window, which has been filled with mullions and tracery of a later date. A plain cylin- drical shaft, a quarter of which is engaged in the walls, runs up between each arch of the nave from the pavement to the ceiling dividing the whole length of the nave into compartments, and two horizontal bands of simple mouldings divide it again into three stories ; the band is also repeated by way of finish above the arches of the clerestory. These bands are continued round the shaft* before mentioned, and appear as fillets to them.
1 We w!U how take occasion to correct an error into which we hare fallen In our description of Chichceter Cathedral. In comparing that nave with this, aa being of tha Mine age and atyle, in p. 33, vol. ii ., we hare stated and lamented that the triforium of the former waa in great meature walled up by one of the bishops, in order to conceal the raften of the aide aisles, which were risible through it, and obaenred how much better aa effect the open triforium of Peterborough produced ; but we omitted at the •am* time to state that the offensive obstructions were removed two or three years ago by the good taste and liberality of the present dean and chapter. It was an oversight, fer which we gladly take this opportunity of apologizing to our readers.
-
PKTERBOROUC1H CATEEDBUJL,
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 77
The ceiling of the nave is of wood, and Mr. Blorc, who two or three years ago examined it minutely in order to its being repaired, pronounces it to be coeval with the walls on which it rests, and therefore is a very curious and rare specimen of the ceilings which were in use before stone vaulting was introduced. The central and by far the greater part of this ceiling is flat, and being higher than the walls of the nave, the side portions are consequently placed in a sloping direction to meet them. It is painted in panels of a lozenge form, in various colours and patterns, the panels them- selves being also adorned with figures, probably of saints and angels, abbots, kings, and princes, and other benefactors of the abbey. The side aisles of the nave are vaulted with stone, and the windows which light them are the insertions of a subsequent age, divided by mullions into several lights, with good simple tracery in the heads of them.
"We come now to the transept and central tower. Both wings of the transept have a side aisle to the east ; no longer open, indeed, but divided into rooms now used as vestries. The south wing has an aisle also to the west, which is closed up and divided into two rooms, one of which now serves for a chapter-house. Of the columns of the transept, some are cylindrical and some octagonal, of vast diameter, and the lower arches have an ornamented moulding, which is wanting in those of the nave. The roof of the transept is of wood, and flat throughout ; it is elegantly painted in a pattern composed of octagons recurring, and filled up with subdivisions, while the in- tervening squares are ornamented with flowers and other devices.
The central tower is built upon four clustered columns and the same number of arches, of which those which open into the transept are semicircular and original, and the others, opening into the nave and choir, are now pointed. That they were also originally semi- circular there can be no doubt, and that the change in their form was the work of Abbot Benedict seems equally certain. The other two arches would have undergone the same change, but the worthy abbot most probably saw the danger to which the tower would be exposed by the execution of such a project. Indeed the column at the south-east angle is now banded together with iron, and seems to be in a very tottering and dangerous condition, owing, perhaps, in some degree to the mischief done in pulling down the old wall and
78 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
erecting a new one, in order to change the form of (he arch from semicircular to pointed. Over the semicircular arches which remain the form of a pointed one is traced upon the wall by a single moulding, which seems to indicate what was wished and intended, but which, from prudential motives, was never effected. The mouldings of the pointed arches are many but plain ; those of the semicircular are equally numerous, and the outer ones adorned with the zigzag. Above the arches of the tower arc the windows which light it, two in each of the four faces of three lights each, with decorated tracery in their heads, which are pointed, and having between them and in the angles of the tower clustered shafts, from which spring the ribs of the wooden vaulting.
We come now to the choir and its side aisles, a work of the same ago and style with the nave and transept, it has (as all Norman churches had) a semicircular termination, and the windows in the apse, although they retain their original form, have been since filled with tracery which belongs to the second period of the pointed style. The ceiling of the apse is perfectly flat and of wood, and painted in a pattern of circles and lozenges. The lower arches of the apse are covered with a rich facing of perpendicular and feathered detail, and the inter-coluraniat ions, as high as the stall work, have been of late filled up with a screen of stone most correctly imitative of the deco- rated Gothic, which forms a part of the new fitting up of the choir by Mr. Blore. The state of the choir previously was mean and incon- gruous to the last degree. The late dean, Dr. Monk, saw and lamented it, bat did not despair of effecting a change ; and although the dis- couragement with which the subject was at first received was enough to damp any zeal bul his, he nevertheless persevered, and proposed a subscription, which was liberally supported not only by himself and the prebendaries both in their individual and corporate capacity, but also by the bishop, whose example was followed by many of the nobility, gentry, and clergy of the diocese. The means being thus raised, Mr. Blorc, whose accurate knowledge of the various styles of architecture in use in this country from the Norman inva- sion to the disappearance of the pointed style in the revived Italian well qualified him to undertake the work, was selected for the architect. The stalls, throne, pulpit, seats, and organ-case, are all of oak, carved from Mr. Blorc's designs in the style of decorated
CA.THBK
•
r
•
•. i.
'S '«
;:
:r
^^ A fbrtfi
™ II B /tajta
fl'I- Atfj , if^ulf, EK
» * « •
.
1 K I'ejtrtAf
1-1.
Jl ^ ^ " </».//•//•/ /.V-/vn
NNN frUnuuai
O fbrtr.ii/ . , .-I. i ..„ 1hb.it.
K />' JUS,,,,
//v /•
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. 79
Gothic, and so successfully is that stylo imitated, that the most practised eye might mistake it for a work of the ago when that style prevailed, and suppose that the whole had only undergone such repairs and cleansing as time had rendered necessary. Tlio stalls strictly speaking are confined to the west end of the choir tinder the organ loft, four on each side of the entrance arch, but the family scats of the members of the chapter ranged on each side the choir have in front the appearance of stalls.
The organ-screen is of stone, and is shewn in one of the plates. The design is exceedingly beautiful ; in the centre is the arch of entrance of most graceful proportions, deeply feathered and adorned with a straight canopy richly crockctted, and surmounted by a finial of the most elegant description. This entrance arch is flanked by octangular buttresses decreasing gradually towards the top, and terminated by crocketted pinnacles with finials. On each side of the entrance are four deep and long niches, with projecting canopies in the best taste, with buttresses and pinnacles between each ; the whole front of the screen is flanked at each end with buttresses and pinnacles exactly similar to those which flank the entrance, and the parapet is straight at the top, and adorned with open trefoils. The old choir extended nearly as far as the first columns of the nave, but when it was newly fitted up it was confined to its natural and architectural position, leaving the transept open and the new screen placed under the eastern arch of the central tower. The roof of the choir from that arch to the apse (the roof of which has been already described) is of wood, and partly vaulted and partly flat: the ribs of the vaulting being continued over the flat part in squares, which are each of them twice crossed diagon- ally, and with the same description of mouldings.
The interior of the building which surrounds the apse is as to its groined roof and its windows so very like the interior of the chapel of King's College, in Cambridge, and so nearly of the same date, that it is probable the same architect was employed about both. The only defect in this addition to Peterborough Cathedral is ft want of due elevation.
Of the cloisters very little now remains ; they were on the south side of the nave, and judging from what is still to be seen, they must have been of considerable extent and beauty. Under the north cast
80 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
and north-west angles were entrances into the abbey. church, which still remain, though seldom used.
Peterborough Cathedral, as will be evident to the reader from the plates and from the description, is certainly one 'of the first class as regards size, magnificence, and architectural importance.
Its dimensions are as follows : — breadth of western facade 156 feet, length of nave from the western wall to the choir entrance 200 feet 3 inches, breadth of do. 35 feet 5 inches ; total breadth in the clear of outside walls 79 feet 4 inches : length of transept 184 feet 9 inches, length of choir from the entrance to the eastern extremity of the apse 128 feet, thence to the east wall 35 feet; breadth of Lady Chapel 83 feet 5 inches. Total external length of the Cathedral 479 feet ; general height from the pavement to the ceiling 81 feet ; height of lantern 135 feet.
Of the establishment we have already spoken in part ; it will be only necessary to state that by the late Act the archdeaconry of Leicester is now added to it. Of the value of this see in the king's books, and the gross annual value of the same at present, notice was taken in the account given of the erection of the see of Peter- borough. The old diocese consisted of the counties of Northamp- ton and Rutland, originally taken out of Lincoln diocese, to these counties has been added, by the Act already alluded to, that of Leicester from the same diocese, a measure, the wisdom of which we cannot sufficiently extol.
With regard to those who have filled this see from its foundation to the present time we have nothing to record but good; and although if we except the present bishop, none of them can be accounted stars of the first magnitude, they have all been men of piety, learning, and benificencc, and every way worthy of their high station in the church. The writings of Dr. Marsh, the present bishop, are too well known to need commendation in these humble pages. It will be sufficient to say, that in the opinion of the learned, they have established his character as a most acute and powerful rcasoner, and the first biblical scholar of his day.
NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
THE diocese of Norwich is one of the very oldest in England ; «ul for the most part consisted anciently, ns it still docs, of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The sec however has not always been where it now is at Norwich. It was first placed at Dunwich, in Suffolk, then both at Dunwich and Elmham, in Norfolk, at the same time, the diocese being divided into two parts ; then at Elm- ham only, next, though only for a short time, at Thetford, and lastly at Norwich, the most convenient situation for it, and where therefore we hope it may continue to the end of time.
Early in the seventh century the king of the East Angles favoured Christianity, though the perceptions he had of its Divine origin and excellence were very indistinct. His successor was better instructed, and his behaviour more consistent. After his death however the cause of true religion declined, and the people very generally re- lapsed into paganism ; but upon the arrival of his brother Sigebcrt in England, who had been banished into France, Christianity again revived, and though it suffered much from pagan invasion, it never was again extinguished. The reign of this prince affords a memorable epoch in the annals of East Anglia. During his residence in France, as a banished man, he is said to have acquired a knowledge and taste for monastic institutions. Soon after his accession to the throne of East Anglia he induced Felix, a Bur- gundian to leave France, in order to instruct his subjects in the Christian religion, and on his arrival appointed him the first bishop of a new diocese, and fixed the see at Dunwich, at that time the capital of his kingdom. Sigebcrt caused churches to be raised and monasteries to be founded in every part of his dominion, and Bomewhcre or other, though antiquaries arc not agreed as to th3 place, a public school was instituted, having the cultivation of reli- gion for its principal object. Malmsbury states that he established seminaries of learning in different places, and thus enabled a people who had been uncivilized and pagan to taste the sweets of literature and true religion. It had been well both for Sigcbert and his subjects, and especially for the latter, if the former had
TOL II. M
62 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
been better acquainted wit;h the nature and requirements of tliat religion. Unhappily, however, after a reign of only two years, during which he completely re-established the Christian religion in East Anglia, he thought proper to retire from his throne and kingdom, where he was doing all the good which his exalted station both demanded of him, and enabled him to perform, into the monastery of St. Edmund, which he had founded at Bury, where he could be of no use to any one, however agreeable his seclusion might be to his own feelings. Soon after this, Penda the pagan king of Mercia invaded East Anglia, and finding Egeric the prince, then upon the throne, unable to resist him, he laid waste the whole kingdom with fire and sword. For a long time his former subjects endeavoured by all the means in their power to draw Sigcbert from his religious seclusion at Bury, but in vain; at length however he was induced, by compassion for their suffer- ing, to quit his beloved monastery for the battle field, but when there, such was his mistaken piety, he refused to play the part of a soldier, and carried nothing in his hand but a slender wand. The very presence however of their former king among them encou- raged the East Anglians to exert themselves to the utmost to drive out the enemy, but to no purpose, a dreadful conflict took place, in which the East Anglians were cut to pieces, and Sigebert and Egeric both slain. Felix the first bishop survived this dread- ful calamity, and governed the diocese seventeen years, and was afterwards canonized. He founded a monastery at Soham, near Ely, and was buried first at Dunwich, but his remains were after- wards conveyed to Soham, and finally removed to Ramsey. To Bishop Felix succeeded Thomas Boniface, and to him Bosa, who was consecrated in 669. Bede says, " that in extreme old age this bishop divided the diocese into two parts, the county of Suffolk forming one, the see of which was continued at Dunwich, and the county of Norfolk the other, the see of which was placed at North Elmhatn." Ecclesiastical historians enumerate eleven bishops in succession over the former see, and ten over the latter, before the two dioceses were again united, and the see continued at Elmham. After this, thirteen bishops in succession sat at Elmham ; Egalmere the last was deposed by the Conqueror, and Her fast, his chaplain and chancellor, appointed to succeed him in
NORWICH CATHEDRAL. 8-1
the year 1070. This bishop at first seized on the rich abbey of Bury for his Cathedral and residence, but was foiled in this project by the influence and exertions of Baldwin, then abbot, who took a journey to Rome in order to lay his case before the Pope, and succeeded in gaining his holiness on his side. Herfast however would not give up his design till he had tried the persuasive eloquence of one hun- dred marks of gold in rain, but in defiance of the papal bull renewed his contest with the abbot, nor did he entirely relinquish it before the year 1801, when King William convoked a council at Winchester on the subject, and issued his royal charter in favour of the abbot and monks, to the great discomforture of the bishop. Failing thus in his unjustifiable attempts on the abbey of Bury, the bishop next availed himself of the decree of Lanfranc, made in London in the year 1075, and removed his see from Elmham to Thetford, then the most con- siderable town in Norfolk. There he built a Cathedral and palace, died, and was buried there. His successor was William Galsagus, or Balfagus, or Beaufo, who was also chaplain and chancellor to King William I., and was appointed to this see in the year 1085. During the six years of his prelacy he exerted himself greatly in the duties of his office, and was the most liberal benefactor to the see from its foundation to the present times. In the year 1091 he was succeeded by Herbert de Losing, or Lozinga, who came from Nor- mandy with William Rufus, and purchased the bishopric for £1900, a vast sum in those days ; he also bought for his father the place and dignity of abbot of Winchester for £1000, for which simoniac.il practices he was cited before the Pope at Rome in 1090, and sen- tenced to lose his pastoral staff and ring, and commanded to build certain churches and monasteries, as a penance for his many and grievous faults, not only in these, but in several other particulars, long before he came into England. On his re-admission into office he removed the see from Thetford to Norwich. Here he laid the foundation of a new Cathedral in the year 1096, and Pope Paschal soon after constituted itthe mother church of all Norfolk and Suffolk. In the course of five years after this period the Cathedral and palace on the north side of it were in a state of great forwardness, as well as a priory begun about the same time on the south side ; for in tho month of September, 1101, the bishop signed their foundation deed, and placed a prior and sixty monks upon it. The oldest portions
81 KOKW1CII CATHEDRAL.
both of the Cathedral and palace plainly testify of their Norman origin, and may therefore without hesitation be regarded as the work of Bishop Herbert, who died on the 22nd of July, in the year 1119. Bloiucfield, in his History of the County of Norfolk, assigns to this bishop the choir, the transept, and the central tower ; he states also that Kborard, the successor of Herbert, completed the Cathedral by building the nave with its side aisles. The manner in which Bishop Eborard's work is spoken of has induced some to think that he built the whole Cathedral. The nave is certainly of vast and unusual length, so that the builder of it may be very justly esteemed even a greater benefactor to the Cathedral than the founder, who lived to finish only those portions of it which have been already mentioned. Be tbis as it may, in the year 1171 it was a good deal damaged by fire, but Bishop John de Oxford repaired it and fitted it up with ornaments and vestments, so that it arose from its ashes in greater splendour than before in the year 1197.
The Lady Chapel at the cast end, long ago destroyed, was the next addition to the Cathedral, and owed its origin and completion to the piety and munificence of Walter de Suffield, the tenth bishop who filled the sec of Norwich from 1244 to 1257. Thus the building of the whole original Cathedral is accounted for ; the appearance of the same fabric at the present time plainly indicates the alterations and additions of a later age. In the year 1271 the tower was greatly injured by lightning during divine service. The next year the whole church was damaged considerably in the violent warfare which was at that time carried on between the citizens and the monks. So many and great were the repairs consequent upon the mischief done at that time, that they were not completed until the year 1278, when it was thought necessary to re-consecrate the whole fabric, which was done on Advent Sunday in that year, by the bishop elect, William dc Middlcton, Kho was himself on that occasion enthroned, in the presence of Edward I. and his queen, Eleanor, and of the Bishops of London, Hereford, and Watcrford, and of many earls, barons, and knight*.
It is generally agreed that Bishop Ralph de Wai pole added the •pire upon the tower about the year 1295, though some are of opinion that it was not finished as it now appears till 1361, by Bishop Percy. The same bishop, Ralph de Walj>olc, who sat in this sec from 1269
a £
NORWICH CATHEDRAL. 85
to 1299, about two years before his death built the chapter-house •which has been since destroyed, and began the cloisters, which however were not finished till the year 1480, as they now appear. In 1463 the spire was struck by lightning, and the damage repaired soon after the accident by Bishop Lyart, who was in other respects a great benefactor to the Cathedral. The beautiful stone vaulting of the nave was raised by him, and a new floor laid about the same time. He caused also an altar-tomb to be raised over the grave of the founder.
Bishop Goldwell his successor continued these improvements and embellishments by constructing the vaulting of the choir, and making the upper windows and flying buttresses of the same ; and bishop Nix completed the whole by adding a stone vaulting to the transept. The great west window was probably inserted in thctiinc of Bishop Lyart, when the stone vaulting of the nave was put up, and the old Norman portal beneath it was altered to what it now is to correspond with that window. Several of the original windows have been enlarged and changed in their character from Norman to pointed, and some, though they retain their original size and shape, have been filled with the mullions and tracery of a much later age. Notwithstanding however all these comparatively modern additions and alterations, Norwich Cathedral still retains for the most part both internally and externally its original Norman cha- racter. It is greatly to be regretted that the stone of which it is built should be of so soft and perishable a nature; it peels off in large flakes, which gives a shabby and ruinous appearance to the edifice. On the north sides this is particularly the case ; there indeed the stone has more than peeled off, it is worn away into deep holes almost as close to one another as the compartments of a honeycomb.
The situation of this Cathedral is so low as to prevent its making an imposing appearance from any distant point. On a nearer ap- proach it appears to the best advantage just before the entrance into Norwich from the Yarmouth road. From that point it is found to possess all the dignity and importance of a Cathedral of the first magnitude and architectural merit, and among such Nor- wich Cathedral has an undoubted right to be classed.
86 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
EXTERIOR.
The cloisters on the south side and bishop's palace on the north, together with its extensive pleasure grounds and other premises shut out from public view all the exterior of this Cathedral except the west front. But were it altogether disencumbered, isolated, and set in the middle of a spacious lawn, its external appearance either as a whole or in detail, if we except the tower and spire, would be found to possess few if any attractions at all. Plain walls blackened with smoke and worn with age, irregularly dotted over with windows of various size and shape, and having no relief from the buttresses, which are too flat to be called projections, such a state of things is perhaps better concealed than exposed, and as the tower and spire are well seen from every point clear of all incum- branccs, the present inclosed condition of the Cathedral is not at all to be regretted.
The west front is entirely open, and has agood broad space before it, adorned with lofty trees, beneath whose shade the inhabitants of the Cathedral close may walk or recline on seats placed there for the purpose. The stone facing of this front has been renewed, but its architectural merit is very moderate. It has none of that dignity and magnificence for which many of the western fa9ades of other Cathedrals are so justly celebrated. It consists of three compart- ments corresponding with the nave and its side aisles, of which the middle is by far the largest, being the west wall of the nave. It is flanked by square turrets which rise to the same height as the gable point of the nave, and are terminated, alas ! by domes surmounted with balls. The lower part of this compartment contains the prin- cipal entrance into the Cathedral. It is a deep and vaulted portal of pointed architecture within a square head, and is adorned on each side with canopied niches, an upper and a lower tier of them. Above this portal is a well-proportioned large pointed window of many lights, and perpendicular Gothic, which fills up the whole space between the flanking turrets. The gable has a single small window unglazcd with a pointed head and one light, which, witn the excep- tion of a decorated cross on the gable point, is all the ornament which this portion of the fabric possesses. The two lateral com- partments are exactly similar, divided into three stories, the lower
WOR.W1TCHI CATIB31
NORWICH CATHEDRAL. 87
containing the original round-headed door, the next an arcade of round-headed arches also original, the third a round-headed window with a single arch of the same kind, supported on slender columns engaged on each side of it. Tho window of one light is now filled with mullions and tracery of perpendicular design. The battlements are of the same age, but the compartments are both flunked by their original Norman turrets, which are square as high as the battlements and then become round, and are, like the other turrets of this facade, most incongruously surmounted by domes and balls of Elizabethan architecture. Such is the west front of Norwich Cathedral, of which perhaps one half is original and the other the work of the fifteenth century. It is not exactly known to whom these architectural alterations arc to be attributed, but tradition seems to favour the supposition that Bishop Alnwyk, who filled the see from 1426 to 1436, was the benefactor who both designed and completed them.
The south side of the nave may be seen from the cloister yard ; the wall of the side aisle is unusually lofty, and is divided into three stories, a portion only of the lowest is seen above the roof of the cloister and is adorned with some blank arcades of round-headed arches, and two large windows, which arc insertions of the latest age of the pointed style ; the story above this contains a scries of small round-headed windows of one light each, one between every two buttresses, with a recess of the same size and shape on each side of every window ; the uppermost story has lost all its original windows, and in their stead are wide obtusely pointed windows of four lights each with tracery of perpendicular character in the heads of them ; above these runs a plain embattled parapet of the same date. The windows of the clerestory have been also altered and divided into two lights each, and have recesses on each side of them of the original Norman work ; the clerestory is surmounted by an embat- tled parapet, exactly similar to that of the side aisle below it. The south wing of the transept is more nearly in its original state, with the exception of the parapet and the introduction of a single mul- lion into the windows ; it is in all other respects exactly so ; only the upper part of the south front of it is visible, on account of the buildings which adjoin ; it is flanked by square turrets, which rise to the height of the gable point, and are enriched in the upper por-
83 NOUWlCIi CAT11KDBAL.
tions with small arcades one above another, and are terminated by embattled parapets, and crockettcd pinnacles of a later style at the four corners of each ; the gable itself is adorned with a low round- headed arcade upon circular columns, and a small circular window with round-headed recesses on each side it and above it, all original. The cast side of this wing of the transept is very similar to the west side, the upper portion of it only is visible over walls and trees.
We come now to the choir and its adjoining side aisles and chapels. The lower story all round is original as to the main walls, but windows square-headed with perpendicular tracery have been inserted since. On the south side a small chapel nearly square projects, with a large decorated window in the south front of it.
Exactly at the point where the round end of the choir begins, on both sides arc chapels of extremely curious form and character ; they belong to the original work of Bishop Herbert de Losing. Their walls are portions of two interesting circles of different diameters, having a round projection at the point of intersection. The windows arc pointed, and are evidently the work of more modern times ; above these windows is an arcade of round-headed arches upon short plain circular pillars, and above the arcade is a scries of round- headed recesses, having the appearance of windows walled up ; a low plain parapet runs round the whole of these very curious ad- juncts. That to the south is called the chapel of St Luke ; the other that of our Saviour. The clerestory of the choir is a work of a very different age and style ; and terminates pentagonally, though set upon the original semicircular Norman work. This part of the fabric owes its existence to the munificence of Bishop Gold well, who was elected in 1472, and died in 1499. It is a remarkably pleasing example of perpendicular Gothic, and though the obtusely pointed arch was at that time introduced, the architect wisely preferred for his windows the arch of the preceding style. The clerestory is lofty, and the windows which light it arc large and beautifully pro- portioned. Between the windows all round the clerestory rest plain flying buttresses, which slope down to meet the upright but- tresses of the side aisles, and there terminate. The whole is sur- mounted by a richly decorated and embattled parapet. The Lady Chapel to the cast of the round end of the choir is gone, but marks of its roof where it joined the choir end arc s:ill visible on the walls
SOUTH £AIT
NORWICH CATHEDRAL. $9
as well as the arch of entrance into it, divided by a pillar into two, with a feathered circle between, although now of course walled up : above this arch is a window, or rather three windows close together, of one light each, all within one wide pointed side arch, probably inserted soon after the destruction of the chapel.
The north side of the Cathedral inclosed within the bishop's premises, and much concealed by the palace itself, and the trees which adorn the palace gardens, is in most respects like the south side, but much more discoloured and worn away; so much so indeed as to lose the appearance of masonry, and to make it dif- ficult, except to a practised eye, to say in what style of architecture it was originally constructed.
The most important and by far the best external feature of Norwich Cathedral yet remains to be described, viz. the tower and spire. Perhaps the best spot from which these can be viewed is one of the drawing-room windows of Dr. Proc tor's prebenclal house. The proportions of the tower and spire are good when separately considered, and equally so when considered together, and in refer- ence to each other. The tower is a very curious and valuable specimen of late Norman architecture, without any mixture from its base to its battlements of the pointed style. It is, for a perfectly Norman work, very lofty and very rich. No other Norman tower in England can boast above half its height, and not half its deco- ration. The great western tower of Ely may vie indeed with this in both these respects, but it is not a purely Norman work, it belongs rather to the transition period in which round and pointed arches are found together : here there is no mixture of styles, all is pure Norman up to the battlements ; but these are not original : the present embattled parapet is the work of a much later age, perhaps coeval with the spire. The plan of the tower is square, with square turrets at the corners, whose external angles are cut off. The four faces of the tower are divided into four compartments by horizontal bands ; the first above the roof ridge contains the windows which light the lantern, as it is called ; this compartment is adorned with an arcade of round arches upon slender pillars, within which are the windows, three in each face, of the tower. A billet moulding divides this from the next compartment, and is also continued round the angular turrets, which is not the case with any of the other
VOL. II. N
90 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
horizontal bands, and from this circumstance it has been thought that the tower was intended originally to terminate there, with a plain parapet upon it, making it the usual height of a Norman tower. If this were so, it was soon afterwards determined to raise the tower to its present height. The next compartment contains an arcade of intersecting circular arches, on shorter columns of the same description. The next, a much loftier arcade, composed of round mouldings, within which (three in each face of the tower) are the round-headed windows of the belfry ; between these windows the round moulding is fancifully disposed in a pattern of lozenges and circles alternately ; the next and highest compartment is quite unique, the same round moulding is formed into a double row of circles one above another, five in a row on every face of the tower ; between the circles are perpendicular shafts of the same round moulding, and the upper row is connected with the lower by short pieces of the same. The upper circles arc pierced and serve for windows to light the upper portion of the tower within. Above this compartment, and immediately upon it the parapet is set, which as we have before hinted at is not original. It is embattled and adorn- ed with good tracery of decorated Gothic. The angular turrets are adorned on all sides with a profusion of round mouldings, per- pendicularly set and parallel, but which have spaces between them ab«ut equal to the diameter of the mouldings : these arc continued from top to bottom, and produce a very rich and pleasing effect. The turrets are finished with a battlement, and upon each one is set a well-proportioned and richly-crocketted spire; these, together with the battlements of the great tower, are the additions of a later age, and were probably constructed at the same time with the great spire, which alone remain to be described. It is, as we have already observed, of most graceful proportions; the base of it is enriched with projecting buttresses, terminated with crockcttcd pinnacles, which are set at the eight angles of the spire, and with the happiest effect ; just above these pinnacles are windows of two lights each, pointed and canopied, and higher up, windows of the same description but of less dimensions. Several plain horizontal bands encircle this beautiful spire at diPerent heights, and the whole is richly crocketted and terminated with a finial, which is surmounted by a weather-cock.
.
vrrw
NORWICH CATHKDRAI.. 91
INTERIOR.
Let the reader now suppose himself to return to the west front, and to enter the Cathedral by the middle portal. The nave is all before him, of vast length and due height, and elegantly vaulted with stone. It is divided in its length into fourteen compartments on each side, and built upon as many semicircular arches, of great solidity and depth, and supported by piers of the same description ; excepting in two instances, where instead of piers are placed two cylindrical columns of vast thickness, ornamented with spiral flut- ings, one on each side of the nave and opposite each other. The arches of the nave have a few plain and very bold surfaces, and the outer one of all is adorned with a billet moulding. The triforium is of great and very unusual height ; it is composed of arches and piers very similar to those on which they stand, and nearly the same height. This arcade is entirely open, ami is, not as is commonly the case, subdivided in each arch by a single pillar supporting two smaller arches within the greater. The outermost surface of the arches is adorned with the zigzag moulding ; the arcade above this is unusually low, formed by three semicircular arches, side by side, in each of the compartments of the nave, with very simple mould- ings resting on short cylindrical columns, the middle arch being of three times the span of the outer ones, and through which are seen the windows of the clerestory. These windows are plainly the insertion of more modern times : the original window was round- headed, wide, and of one light ; the round head has been walled up, and an obtusely pointed arch introduced beneath it, and the window divided into two lights by a plain mullion with correspond- ing tracery in the head of it The roof of the nave is magnificent both in its design and extent, for though the choir obtrudes itself into the nave as far as the two first compartments eastward, this arrangement does not interfere with the vaulting, which is seen in all its length from the west window to the central tower. Had this vaulting been erected a century earlier, it might have agreed better with the architecture of the nave, but in itself it is a beautiful work, and rich though it be, and elaborate in its design, it does not injure the effect of the whole. The side aisles of the nave are
92 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
in their original state, the vaulting of them is exceedingly plain and ponderous ; it is semicircular, without any mouldings, or ribs, or carved key-stones.
The transept is intercepted by the choir, which is partly under the central tower, and stretches beyond it, ns we have before observed, into the nave itself. When the choir screen was altered it would have been better to have removed it to the eastern arch of the tower, that the transept with its lantern might have been seen at once in its length and breadth, and in connection with the nave. This portion of the Cathedral is also original ; ' it is singular in hav- ing no side aisles ; it is of good length, rather deficient in breadth, but of the same height with the nave and choir, and like them elegantly and richly vaulted with stone. To the north wing of the transept and to the east wall of it is a building, now in a ruinous condition, called a vestry, but originally perhaps a chapel ; it has a window in the east end of it which is semicircular : from the south wing of the transept the present vestry is entered, a large room of modern date, filling up the corner between the transept and a build- ing on the south side of the choir called Bishop Beauchamp's chapel.
We now come to the choir, the effect of which on first entering it is very imposing; coming across the transept, and into the nave it is of unusual length ; the stalls however do not extend beyond the lantern, so that the choir, architecturally speaking, is entirely open space unencumbered by stalls, pews, or seals of any kind. The lantern is set upon four semicircular arches with plain mouldings,and supported by four massive piers of the same plain, solid description. The first horizontal compartment above these arches is an arcade of semicircular arches resting on short cylindrical columns, behind which is an open gallery all round the lantern. The next compart- ment is adorned with a similar arcade, without the accompanying gallery, but it docs not extend the whole length of each side, instead of which the spaces on each side of every one of the four arcades are pierced with a circle with a plain moulding round it ; the third and highest compartment consists of a lofty arcade of semicircular arches, and of a complicated and curious character, through which are seen the windows before noticed in the description of the ex- terior : and this arcade has also behind it an open gallery all round.
1 The toutii wing of the tmucpt hu been restored by Salria to iU original aUte, taring been pctriooalj much dilapidated.
NORWICH CATUBDBAL. 93
Immediately above this is a flat ceiling of stucco work, with cor- nice and panels, adorned with wreaths and medallions, very good in its way ; but we need hardly say totally out of place here, and spoiling the whole effect of the lantern.
The stalls of the choir arc good, richly carved in oak with high backs and projecting canopies, and crowned with a multitude of crockctted pinnacles. The screen has been altered and improved as well as the organ case, which is now in unison with the stalls. The side pillars and arches of the choir arc concealed by a screen of richly-decorated Gothic, in which some monuments have been con- structed in the same style. The arches of the apse arc not concealed, and are of the same style with those of the nave, as is the triforiuin all round the choir, but all the arches arc a little less in the span.
The clerestory of the choir is of a totally different age and style, and yet the effect of the whole is exceedingly good. The windows are pointed, well proportioned of four lights each, with good tracery in their heads. Between the windows on both sides arc lofty deep niches feathered and canopied, which doubtless once had statues. From the top of these niches spring the main ribs of the vaulting, which is similar to that of the nave and transept. The windows in the clerestory of the apse arc of the same size and character with those on each side of the choir, but they arc so close to each other that there is no room for anything between them but a cluster of three slender shafts, on the top of which spring the ribs of the groined roof of the apse, which is well designed and has the most charming effect. Indeed this part of the clerestory is very cleverly set upon the triforium of the apse, which is semicircular, while this is pentagonal. The lofty, wide, and open triforium of this Cathe- dral, both in the nave and choir, has a very majestic and imposing effect throughout, but more especially in the apse where the arches are of less span, and nearer together.
The side aisles of the choir are of the same age and style with those of the nave, and vaulted in the same plain and ponderous manner. In the side aisle to the south is the entrance into what was Bishop Beauchamp's chapel, now the consistory court, a small oblong room with groined roof, and a large window of decorated character opposite the entrance. A little further on at the south- western extremity of the apse, is the entrance into what was St. Luke's chapel, which is now used as a parish church, the organ for
94 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
which is placed between two of the nspidnl piers of the choir. At the norih-western extremity of the npse is placed the entrance to another chapel very similar to that of St. Luke, and dedicated to our Saviour, and in the middle of it is the tomb of Sir Thomas Windham.1
The dimensions of Norwich Cathedral are as follows : from the great western door to the choir screen 212 feet ; breadth of nave 72 feet 7 inches ; of side aisles 12 feet 3 inches ; length of tran- sept 177 feet ; breadth of do. 30 feet 6 inches ; from choir door to the farthest point of the apse 170 feet ; breadth of choir from screen to screen 45 ; height of the vaulting about 73 feet. Height of tower and spire 313 feet.
We have yet to speak of the cloisters, which are surpassed by none in beauty of architecture and solemnity of effect. They are on the south side of the Cathedral, which may be entered both at the north-cast and north-west angle of them. They form a square of about 150 feet The style of architecture may be called decorated Gothic, though not altogether unmixed with details belonging to the succeeding style. The windows all round are of three lights each, with tracery of good design in the heads of them. The form of the vaulted roof is particularly pleasing, and the ribs and carv- ings at their intersections equally worthy of commendation.
This Cathedral is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity. Formerly there were four archdeacons, but now since the late act only three, viz. of Norfolk, Norwich, and Suffolk, that of Sudbury being transferred to Ely. These archdeaconries are in the gift of the bishop ; besides these there is a chancellor, a dean appointed by the crown, and six prebends, of which five are also in the gift of the crown, but presented to by the lord chancellor, and one is annexed to the headship of Catherine Hall, in the University of Cambridge. There are also belonging to this Cathedral a full com- plement of singing-men and choristers, schoolmasters, vergers, and other inferior officers. The see was once very wealthy, but Henry VIII. took from it its original endowment of lands, and gave the lands of St. Benedict, in Norfolk, in exchange. In the king's books it is rated at £834 11s. 7$d. per annum, and was returned by the present bishop to be worth £5395 in gross annual value.
* The only monument with a ttatuo upon it in tLU Cathedral at present, U that of Biabop Goldwtll, who died in 1498.
JUI
AA KB
H li .*.« 11 f Ji'rlrr
mnnncsjm
/•• *•
' /' J^»« • Mt'tim'
m ff T--T-"- — '- r.-m*
|
1 |
v < |
||
|
I ^ *|M "iMllMHH |
|||
|
I |
_ ! • i |
* 1 |
*fc f f 9 -f f f f • f f f X -- F ^ |
|
t |
• |
1 |
4 5*> |
|
I |
m |
1 |
• -- |
|
• |
1 |
* * |
|
|
* |
• \ A |
\ |
«• » |
|
• |
I |
'fr fr |
|
|
* |
• |
' |
|
|
t |
• |
||
|
t |
• |
1 |
|
|
• |
1 |
||
|
* |
• |
* |
|
|
0 |
4t ^ |
fe£ |
«** i i i i
It *m Vr R Rtil
EMTRAWCE TO "THE CLOISTERS
KORWICH CATHEDRAL. 95
William Casleton, the last prior of the Cathedral, was appointed the first dean in the year 1538.
The ancient diocese of Norwich consisted of the whole of the counties both of Norfolk and Suffolk, together with a portion of Cambridgeshire, but by the late Act it is very judiciously deprived of the latter, together with some of the distant parts of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk which border on Cambridgeshire.
The first two bishops of this diocese, after the see was removed to Norwich, were great benefactors to the Cathedral ; William Turbus, or Turberville, the third bishop, who had been previously prior of Norwich, was famous for the zeal with which he advocated the cause of Thomas-4-Bccket, Archbishop of Canterbury. The sixth bishop of Norwich was no less a person than the famous Pandulph, who came to England as the pope's legate, and induced King John to acquiesce in the wishes of that pontiff, and for his service was rewarded by that monarch with the see of Norwich. Nearly all ecclesiastical writers allow, that the intrigues of this prelate were detrimental to the solid interests of this country. He introduced a great many of his own countrymen into England, and gave them all the benefices that were in his gift.
Antony de Beck, elected in 1337, rendered himself odious to the monks by his arrogant and oppressive behaviour towards them, and was poisoned by his own servants at the instigation, as it is supposed, of the injured monks. William Bateman, the worthy successor of this unworthy and ill-fated bishop, was a native of Norwich, and is famous for having founded and endowed a small College in Cam- bridge called Trinity Hall. He died and was buried at Avignon. Henry de Spencer, a relative of the king, was elected in 1870, and obtained the name of the warlike bishop of Norwich ; he was also a great and severe persecutor of the Lollards. He distinguished himself in the wars of his times, and took part with Pope Urban VI. against Pope Clement VII., and with his sovereign Richard II. against the French king. Thomas Brown, elected in 1436, was succeeded by Walter Lyart in 1445; both these were benefactors to the cause of sound learning, by founding scholarships and exhi- bitions in the Universities. Richard Nix, elected in 1501, con- signed five persons to the flames for their religious opinions. He afterwards took the oath denying the pope's supremacy, but still intrigued secretly with the court of Rome. William Rugg, his
96 NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
successor, was scarcely, if at all, more worthy of this place and dignity. He had been fellow of Caius College, in Cambridge ; he was instrumental in advancing the wishes of Henry VIII. in re- spect to his divorce from his queen, Catherine of Arragon, and was rewarded by that monarch with the see of Norwich. He received it however under degraded and impoverished circumstances ; for at this time the king took from it its original revenues and gave very inferior ones in lieu of them. The see was afterwards impo- verished still more by the bishop himself as far as he could do it, by granting long leases, annuities, and pensions. He became by his general bad conduct so justly despised, that he gladly resigned the bishopric, upon receiving an annuity of £200. Thomas Thirlby his successor, was a worthy good man, and was translated from Westminster, being the only bishop that ever presided over that short-lived diocese. John Hopton his successor, was a cruel per- secutor of the Protestants in the time of Queen Mary.
Among the prelates who have presided over this diocese since the Reformation, may be mentioned first, Richard Corbet, trans- lated from Oxford in the year 1632. A most virtuous and truly dignified character, and author of " Sundry Pieces of Poetry." Next must be mentioned a still more worthy and eminent prelate, Joseph Hall, elected in 1641 : he presided over this diocese in most difficult and dangerous times, but was found faithful unto all the " hard measure" which he experienced. He was confined in the Tower, expelled his see, and died in the retirement of a country village near Norwich, in the eighty-second year of his age. His works are numerous, and evince the most exalted piety and devotion, and the soundest and most extensive erudition. George Home was promoted to this sec in the year 1790 ; whose piety, learning, and literary labours arc scarcely inferior to those of the last-mentioned prelate. His " Letters on Infidelity" are well known, and much valued. His Commentary on the Psalms is perhaps even better known and more esteemed. He did not long survivo his deserved promotion. In 1792 he was succeeded by Charles Manners Sutton, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, to which he was translated from this see in 1805. In the same year Henry Bathurst was appointed to this see. By the death of this amiable and venerable prelate, only a few weeks ago, at the age of ninety- three, the see of Norwich is now vacant.
H
EXETER CATHEDRAL.
EXETER was the capital of the Damnonii, whose dominions in- cluded both Devonshire and Cornwall, but after their subjugation to the Roman yoke, probably in the first century, Exeter became a Roman station, of which indeed its very name assures us ; though it was at first called by the Romans Isia Damnoniorum. Its British name according to Simeon of Durham was Caer-wise, which signifies the city of waters.
When the Romans relinquished their conquests in England, the West Britons recovered their possessions, and, according to Whitaker, Damnonium became again a small independent king- dom; and not only a kingdom, but now also (the people having been in the interim converted to Christianity) a diocese : and thus, he continues, does the episcopate of Damnonium mount up for its origin even to the middle of the fifth century. The sec he considers to have been at Exeter, where it remained as long as the kingdom of the Damnonii continued undisturbed : but when the country east of the Exe was reduced by the Saxons during the latter part of the seventh century, the unsubdued Damnonii necessarily formed a new capital for their kingdom, and a new sec for their bishop, at which time Leskard, he asserts, became their capital and St. German's their see.
This early date however for the diocese and see of Exeter is not satisfactorily supported by an historical evidence, and some, judging from the same slight notices of that remote and barbarous age, unconnected and sometimes inconsistent with each other as they are, have discarded the opinion of Whitaker, and after much patient examination have come to a very different conclusion.
But leaving such antiquaries to chew the cud of perplexity over such documents, it shall be our care to conduct the reader into the pleasant pastures of well-authenticated history, and feed him with such information upon this subject as shall be entirely satisfactory.
Devonshire, after its partial subjugation to the Saxon invaders and their conversion to Christianity, became subordinate to the
VOL. II. 0
98 BXKTKB CATHEDRAL.
bishops of Wessex, and so continued till the year 703, when it was deemed advisable in a provincial synod to divide the diocese of Wessex, which extended from the frontiers of Kent to the borders of Cornwall, into two. Under this new regulation, the see of the western half was fixed at Sherborne. In somewhat less than two hundred years afterwards an increase of converts demanded more distinct and minute pastoral care, and the church by its growing prosperity became as able, as it ever had been willing, to meet and satisfy that demand. At this time Devonshire and Cornwall be- came two separate dioceses. The see of Cornwall was fixed first at Bodmin, and afterwards at St. German's, where the ancient church, onre the Cathedral, is still preserved, not indeed in all its original extent, but yet a dignified and imposing object. The sec of Devon- shire was fixed at Crediton by Aidulf the first bishop, who died in the year 931, and was buried in his Cathedral, which he is said to have rebuilt with much splendour. It is however thought by some that the see was first placed at Tawton, near Barnstaple, for a short time, and two bishops, Werstanus and Putta, are mentioned as having presided in succession over this diocese during that period : but we have no sufficient proof of this, which seems indeed to be nothing more than a wild conjecture.
Historians enumerate nine bishops of Crediton, exclusive of Aidulf. Leofric, the last of them, removed the see to Exeter. He was descended of an illustrious race in Burgundy. He was for those times a man of great learning, and like his immediate prede- cessor in the see of Crediton (whose name was Livingus), was much esteemed by king Edward the Confessor, to whom he was botli chaplain and chancellor. After his promotion to the sec of Crediton, according to an old MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, " going over his diocese he studiously preached the word of God to the people committed to his charge, enlightened his clergy by his supe- rior learning, built many churches, and omitted nothing of the duties which belonged to his high and responsible situation." Soon how- ever seeing both Devonshire and Cornwall to be often infested and ravaged by barbarous pirates, he began to meditate diligently how he could transfer the episcopal chair from Crediton to Exeter, where he could perform all his offices safely and free from all hostile incur- sions, on account of the strength of the place both by nature and
EXETER CATHEDRAL. «ij
art. Thia bishop had at the same time a great desire to join with Crediton the bishopric of St. German's, and so unite Devonshire and Cornwall into one diocese, which he had the satisfaction to see effected soon after by order of Edward the Confessor, whom he induced to think with him on this important matter. The grant for the removal of the united sees of Crediton and St. German's to Kxeter is very curious, and the ceremony was performed in the fol- lowing manner : king Edward first placed the charter with his own hand upon the high altar of St. Peter's Abbey church, which was chosen for the Cathedral, he then led Leofric by the right hand while his queen Eaditha led him by the left up to the episcopal seat, and placed him in it in the presence of many nobles and eccle- siastics.
The Abbey Church of St. Peter, in Exeter, was founded in the year 982 for monks of the Benedictine order ; but not long after its foundation the monks fled from it to save themselves from falling victims to the barbarous cruelties of the invading Danes King Edgar, the great restorer of monasteries, introduced the monks again to Exeter, in the year 968, who were again forced to fly upon the second devastation of this city by the Danes in 1003. After this Canute encouraged the monks once more to settle here, and con- firmed to them by charter their lands and privileges in the year 1019.
Leofric's installation at Exeter took place in the year 1046. Submitting himself entirely to the views of William I. he was not removed from his bishopric, when that conqueror had taken full possession of England. Leofric is said to have been a great bene- factor to his Cathedral Church, of which however every vestige has long been swept away from the face of the earth. He died about the year 1073, and was succeeded by Osbern, or Osbertus, a Norman of noble birth, and related to Edward the Confessor. The next bishop was "Warelwast, also by birth a Norman, and son of the conqueror's sister. It is to this prelate that the present Cathe- dral of Exeter owes its foundation, but neither of his Cathedral is there anything standing except the transept towers. He laid the foundation of the edifice in the year 1112, but he did not live to finish it. His successors in the sec continued his design, which was not completed till the very end of the twelfth century, during the episcopate of Henry Marischall, who was a great benefactor to
100 'EXETER CATHEDRAL.
the work, and died in 1206, after having held the see only twelve years.
The present Cathedral, with the exception of the towers before mentioned, is entirely of another age and style, and may therefore be called the third Cathedral of Exeter which is known to have existed since the removal of the see to this city. It is for the most part an edifice of the second or decorated age of the pointed style. Peter Quivil, elected bishop in 1280 began it, but dying in 1291, left it in a very unfinished state. His successor Thomas Bytton, continued the work all his time, but neither did he live to complete it. His successor Walter dc Stapledon, elected in 1307, held the sec twenty years, and was also a great benefactor to the building, but left it unfinished. James de Berkeley, the next bishop, held the sec for a very short time only, and we do not find that the Cathedral is at all indebted to him. John Grandisson succeeded him, and was elected in 1331, and held the see nearly forty years, during which time he finished the Cathedral as it now appears, if we except the Lady Chapel, and some trifling detail in the west front, which works his successor Thomas Brentyngham is supposed to have completed. Edmund Lacey, who was translated from Hereford in 1420, and died in 1455, built the upper part of the chapter-house. The throne in the choir, the most remarkable thing of the kind in England, was erected by John Boothe, who became bishop of Exeter in 1465, and died in 1478.
Having now traced the see of Exeter to its source, and given the history of the present and two former Cathedrals as far as well- authenticated documents have afforded an opportunity, we come now to describe the present building and its situation.
The country about Exeter is highly picturesque ; the Cathedral stands on the most elevated ground in the city, and yet notwith- standing these advantages its appearance at a distance is not so imposing as that of some others. It is however the object which most of all engages the attention of the spectator in a distant view of Exeter, and continues to do so when he is arrived in the city itself. Till within the present century the Cathedral was nearly surrounded by numerous houses and other buildings, which have since been very properly removed, and the visitor may now freely examine nearly two-thirds of the whole exterior of this interesting edifice. Exter-
EXETER CATHEDRAL. 101
cally the great defect of Exeter Cathedral is a want of elevation in the body. Its peculiarities also, the want of a central tower, and the low broad square towers at each end of the transept, are unfa* vourable to its external appearance both at a distance and on a nearer approach. The whole effect is heavy and lumpy, but it has architectural detail of first-rate merit and in immense variety. In its dimensions it cannot be classed among Cathedrals of the first magnitude. In every respect except elevation it very much rcsein* bles many of the best Cathedrals of France, and was erected very soon after such of them as it most of all resembles, as the style of the architecture plainly evinces. After these few general remarks upon the whole building we will now examine particularly every portion of it.
EXTERIOR.
Another peculiarity of Exeter Cathedral is to be seen in the plan of its west front. It consists of three stories, the basement containing the portals, three in number, is entirely covered with niches, which are all filled with statues : above this, and receding a little, is the west wall of the nave, in which is a magnificent original window, filled with the most beautiful tracery of the style called decorated Gothic. Above this again, and receding a little in like manner behind the parapet, is the gable of the nave, containing a window of the same character, but of much smaller dimensions. This arrangement is entirely French, and is very commonly seen both in the west fronts and transept fronts of French Cathedrals. The buttresses of the west wall of the nave stand at some distance from it, and are connected with it by plain flying buttresses of solid masonry. The lower and greater part of the former are hid behind the projecting basement story, which in order to incase them projects at those points as much as is required beyond the plane of the rest of it. The'portions of the buttresses which are seen above the base- ment story are adorned with niches, canopies, and statues. The wall of the nave above the great west window is embattled, and behind it rise hexagonal turrets, which appear to flank the gable, and which are adorned each with a single pinnacle canopied and ciocketted. The gable point is adorned with a canopied niche con-
102 F.XKTJ U CATHEDRAL.
taining a statue, and terminating in a crockctted pinnacle. Another peculiarity of this fa£udc consists in the sloping walls built on each side of the west wall of the nave, as if purposely to conceal tho buttresses of the nave and its side aisles ; which certainly have nothing to recommend them in an architectural point of view. These walls are embattled and flanked outwardly, with hexagonal turrets, which are also embattled. The surface both of these walls and their flanking turrets is richly ornamented with arcades of trefoil-headed arches, which have straight canopies enriched with crockets and finials. We know of no precedent for these sloping walls anywhe/e except in the west front of the superb marble Cathedral of Milan. The effect there is not good, and here it is still worse ; it greatly diminishes the apparent height, destroys all proportion, and gives a character of heaviness and awkwardness to the whole of this facade. With regard to these sloping walls, and to the richly-decorated and projecting basement story of this west front, we cannot forbear hazarding the opinion, that they do not form a part of the original design. The reader will remember that although the present Cathe- dral was begun in the year 1280, it was not finished as it now appears till nearly eighty years afterwards, during which time architecture was gradually undergoing a change, and architects were continually studying to invent novelties, and to introduce new forms and arrange- ments, as well as decorations in the buildings erected by them. Now the west front was always the last portion built of every Cathedral, or other important church, and we cannot but think that had Bishop Quivil lived to finish his Cathedral, ho would have erected a west front far more simple, and with much better propor- tions than that which now exists. The sloping walls would have been omitted, the basement story would not have projected, or only that part of it between the projecting buttresses ; in which case the beautiful windows of the west end of the side aisles would not have been concealed, the pointed heads of which arc now all that is to be seen of them over the parapet of the screen which has been built in front of them. The portals would have been in the walls under the windows with straight canopies, and the original buttresses which flank the outer angles of the side aisle would have given a good finish to the extremities of the facade. The portals by which the nave and side aisles are entered seem to have been reconstructed
METER CATHEDRAL. 103
since the erection of the basement story or screen, or altered at a later period when the Cathedral underwent considerable repairs in various parts of it. Upon the whole this facade is very uniform, and would have been perfectly so, had not the west wall of the north side aisle been extended a little beyond the flanking buttress for the sake of erecting a chapel at that point; the battlements and parapet of the side aisles are horizontal, and in the additional part of the wall before mentioned is a window which lights the chapel, now the con- sistory court. That building indeed, which on turning round the north-west corner of the Cathedral comes next in order to be exa- mined, is nearly all window : to the north it has a very large pointed window of five lights, filled with good flowing or decorated tracery; to the east it has another of two lights, and of the same character. The walls of thisbuilding are of plain solid masonry, with an embattled parapet all round, which is heavy and slightly projecting. Passing three windows of the north side aisle, the next object worthy of par- ticular attention is the north porch, which projects as far as the but- tresses, and is surmounted on all sides with a parapet of the same kind as that on the chapel before described. The portal is rather too low, but it has a lofty, straight, and acute-angled canopy, richly crocketted, and containing a niche ; it is also flanked by small but- tresses, whose pinnacled tops reach the base of the parapet, the face of the wall on each side of the portal is further adorned with arches and niches, which arc surmounted with canopies of the same height and richness, but of less span than that over the portal, and nrc moreover flanked outwardly by similar buttresses and pinnacles. The effect of these three canopies side by side is remarkably good. Over the porch is a very singular projection in the wall of the cle- restory, and of about the same dimensions, although it does not ex- tend quite so far as the wall of the side aisle. The reason for this projection is said to be the formation of a music gallery within. It is lighted by a window of moderate size and inferior merit, and is plainly and heavily embattled. Passing two more windows of the north side aisle, we come to the transept, or rather the low, square, ponderous Norman tower, under which more than half the north wing of the transept is worked. The walls of this tower are quite plain to a considerable height ; it is then divided into four compart- ments all round by plain horizontal bauds, and surmounted with a
104 F.XETEU CATHEDRAL.
plain embattled parapet. Each compartment is adorned with ar- cades of round-headed arches, most of which have the zigzag moulding, and within some of them are the windows which give light to the interior. This arrangement however is interrupted on the north face of the tower by the insertion of a large pointed window of six lights, with beautiful and elaborate tracery of deco- rated character. The same thing was done to the south face of the other tower, and at the same time, when the Cathedral was rebuilt at the close of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, and when these towers were made subservient to the tran- sept of the new Cathedral, as far at least as to the height of the nave and choir. Perhaps indeed the transept of the old Norman church was also worked under them ; it is at least difficult to ima- gine to what other purpose they would have been applied situated as they are ; for it is well known that they never were a part of the west front, although the nave of the old church did not extend so far to the west as the present nave does. These towers arc so very similar, that we shall not trouble the reader with a detailed account of the minute and unimportant differences which are to be found upon the external surface of them ; we have only therefore to add to what has been already said, that they have both square turrets engaged at the four corners, and which rise considerably above the parapets of the towers, and then proceed with our de- scription of the rest of the Cathedral.
On turning round the north-east angle of the tower, on the north side of the Cathedral we meet with a projection in the east face of that tower in the style of the rest of the Cathedral, which is a chapel dedicated to St. Paul ; it has angular buttresses and windows in three sides, that to the east being very large, and filled with tracery of the best design. There is a similar projection on the east face of the south tower, which is a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Passing three windows of the side aisle of the choir, we meet with an adjunct larger than any we have yet described, so large indeed that some have been led to think it a part of the transept of the old Norman Cathedral, and the more so, as there is a similar adjunct on the couth side of the choir exactly opposite ; it projects far beyond the buttresses of the side aisle, and is a heavy mass of masonry, with a huge hexagonal buttress engaged at the north-west angle, in which
EXETER CATHEDRA!* 105
• staircase if worked ; it has slighter but very plain buttresses at the other angles ; it is also plainly embattled, and has a large hat badly proportioned window in the north face of it, with one of lew dimensions but better proportions over it. It rises no higher than the side aisle ; it is the chapel of St. Andrew, and its want of suffi- cient breadth is thought by some to be fatal to the supposition of its ever having been part of the transept of the Cathedral, coeval with the towers. Passing three more windows of the side aisle of the choir, we come to another projection, which is the chapel of St. George : at this point the choir ends, and the Lady Chapel begins, which if it be at all later, it must be but a very little later than the choir to which it is appended, as the masonry is equally plain and solid, and the windows nearly of the same character ; that to the east is very large, filling up nearly the whole space between the angular buttresses, and adorned with a profusion of the flowing tracery peculiar to this style. The cast end of the choir, flanked with hexagonal turrets engaged, is seen over the embattled parapet of the east end of the Lady Chapel. The east window of the choir is a magnificent example of an early perpendicular window. It was put up at the close of the fourteenth century. Churches built from that time till the disappearance of the pointed style, in the revived Italian were all windows and buttresses. The love of large windows is supposed to have led to the change which gradually took place in the style of architecture from what is called the decorated to the perpendicular. The increased width of the windows rendered it necessary to carry up the straight mullions to the head of the window, and that all the tracery should be as far as possible straight also ; but how greatly superior is the flowing tracery of the decorated Gothic, as exemplified in the great west window of the nave, not only in that respect superior, but also in its form, its dimensions, and proportions. Above the horizontal embattled para- pet of the choir, is seen the gable of it, adorned with a small rose window filled with good flowing tracery. The gable point has a small pinnacle, and the flanking turrets have one each. The whole of the south side of the Cathedral is too nearly similar to the north already described to need any further notice. It should be men- tioned however that there is no south porch, and that the chapter- house adjoins the south face of the old Norman tower. The bishop's
VOL. II. P
106 WCETER CATHEDRAL.
palace and gardens conceal from public view all the south-east part of (he Cathedral and the chapter- house. The lower part of the latter edifice is as old as Henry III., that is, up to the sills of the windows. The upper part is the work of Bishop Lacy, and is all of perpendicular character. Before we close our examination of the exterior of this Cathedral it will be necessary to observe, that the clerestory is of the same character on both sides, having lar.^c win- dows with flowing tracery and buttresses between them, terminated with crocketted pinnacles, the whole is surmounted also with a plain embattled parapet The windows of the side aisles arc of the same character with those of the clerestory, as wide but somewhat shorter, and therefore less pleasing in their proportions. These have very heavy plain buttresses between them, which are connected with the buttresses of the clerestory by flying buttresses as plain and heavy as themselves. The side aisles have a plain embattled parapet, the heaviness of which as well as of the buttresses, which greatly pro- ject, is a little relieved by a series of crocketted pinnacles set at the point where the flying buttresses join the upright ones. And yet it must be owned that all these external props of both kinds con- stitute one of the defects of Exeter Cathedral. Another, as was before observed in the account of a distant prospect of it, is the want of elevation. These two defects together give to the whole edifice, in walking round it, a heavy, lumpy appearance, for which not even the beauty of the windows, with their studied variety of most ex- cellent flowing tracery, can entirely compensate.
The roof covered with lead is too much exposed, and adds still more to the lumpy effect already regretted. The roof ridge is adorned with a sort of edging composed of a scries of flcur-dc-lis, which has a pretty effect, quite peculiar to this Cathedral, and is another of its French features.
INTERIOR.
Till within a few years the eye of the visitor of taste was appalled, on entering this Cathedral, at beholding the nave encumbered with an assortment of the heaviest and worst arranged pews that ever were constructed in any place of worship : most happily these disgusting obstructions, which destroyed the character, the effect, and proportions of the Cathedral, have at length been swept away,
FXETKR CATHEDRAL. 107
we hope for ever. We have before lamented the want of elevation in the interior of Lincoln Cathedral, that want is still more felt on first entering this of Exeter; it is however its only defect; we cannot speak too highly in praise of the interior of this Cathedral in every other respect ; its breadth and length, its windows, its organ and organ-gallery, its monuments, and bishop's throne, the uniformity of its architecture, the beauty, excellence, and variety of its detail ; but above all, the form and plan of its vaulting, uninterrupted throughout the whole length of the Cathedral, all these things are quite unrivalled in England, and will amply repay the lover of the pointed style for his journey to Exeter, from whatever distance ho may come to it. In the interior, notwithstanding its want of elevation, the visitor is still more reminded of the Cathedrals of France, than he was by the exterior. There is a very remarkable resemblance in the nave to that of Strasburg Cathedral : and the more so, because the vaulting there, though not so low as this, is yet not elevated enough to satisfy the eye of a Gothic architect. The nave is supported upon an arcade on each side of seven pillars and arches, the former beautifully clustered, the latter wide, but of graceful form, and elegantly wrought with mouldings, and surfaces, which correspond with the arrangement of the pillars on which they rest. The capitals of the pillars are exquisitely carved, and of simple design; their bases are equally good, and consist of three courses of mouldings. Between every two arches is an exceedingly rich corbel, composed of figures and foliage, and no two are alike, these support slender reeded columns with highly decorated and studiously diversified capitals, from which spring the ribs of the vaulting. The triforium is remarkably low, and consists of an arcade of four pointed arches feathered, and resting on small clustered columns, repeated in each compartment of the nave on both sides with one very singular exception, which, as it is the only interruption to the general uniformity of the nave, cannot but attract the attention of the visitor, and must therefore be briefly noticed in this description of the interior of the Cathedral. Projecting from the north wall of the nave over the fifth arch from the west end, and supported upon brackets, is a stone gallery ; the front of which is adorned with twelve niches, each containing the statue of an angel playing on a musical instrument. It ia now called the Minstrel's Gallery, and probably was intended from the first for the reception of
108 EXETER CATHEDRAL.
vocal and instrumental performers, on particular occasions. It is capable of containing a large band of musicians, being very deep, and formed partly by the projection already noticed, in our descriptio.n of the exterior, as built over the side aisle at the place where the north porch projects from it. Immediately over the triforium is a gallery whose front is of open stone work, the pattern being a double row of pierced quatrefoils. Above this gallery and recessed a little behind it, is the clerestory, which is as much more lofty than ordinary, as the triforium is lower. The windows arc well proportioned, of many lights, and flowing tracery of various and beautiful design, and delicate execution. The vaulting is elegantly pitched, and the ribs diverging from the capitals of the slender columns before mentioned, and spreading themselves gracefully over the groining, are adorned at their intersections with bosses of sculpture of various devices, and exquisitely finished. This roof, there being no intervening central tower or lantern, is continued across the transept to the eastern ex- tremity of the choir in one unbroken line, and plan, and is the longest stone vaulting that exists perhaps in the pointed style of architecture. The vaulting of the side aisles of the nave is of the same character. The transept has no side aisles, the greater part of it is constructed within the old Norman towers, in the north and south walls of which windows are inserted of the same character with those in the cleres- tory of the nave and its aisles, but of larger dimensions. From the east wall in the north wing of the transept, the chapel of St. Paul is entered, and in the same wall of the south wing is the entrance to St. John the Baptist's chapel, they are small, but well propor- tioned, having large pointed windows, to the east, and smaller ones to the north and south, of the same character as those already de- scribed. The stone vaulting is also very similar to that of the rest of the Cathedral, but on a less scale. These chapels are now used as vestries for the various members of the Cathedral establishment. We come now to the choir screen, dividing that part of the Cathedral from the nave and transept. This screen is the work of Bishop Grandisson, and was completed in the year 1350. It is a magnificent example of the style which then prevailed, and stands unrivalled as a screen, and supports an organ equally magnificent and unrivalled in England. The plan of the screen is a deep arcade of three pointed arches richly feathered, over which is a gallery
EXETER CATHEDRAL.
mm
EXETEB CATHEDRAL. 109
with a front enriched with niches and statues, which, though a modern addition, agrees extremely well with the original work* Beneath the middle arch of the screen the choir itself is entered, the fitting up of which (since the columns, arches, windows, and vaulting arc of the same description with those of the nave) alone remains to be noticed.
On entering the choir the effect is greatly heightened by the beautiful painted glass in the east window, which is all original, and in the highest state of preservation. Nineteen whole length figures of saints, patriarchs, and other celebrated and important personages, are here represented, together with a variety of armorial bearings. Some of the side windows also contain curious and rich specimens of ancient stained glass. The stalls are of good design and well carved in oak ; but the principal object, and that which attracts the attention of all persons on first entering the choir, is the bishop's throne. This superb monument of episcopal grandeur stands at the extremity of the stalls on the south side of the choir. It is carved in oak. and has a pyramidal canopy of open carving, which rises nearly to the height of the vaulting. The design is astonishingly light and elegant, and the execution of its truly delicate and varied detail, most admirable. The effect of the whole however is not so good as might be expected. The height of the pyramidal partis out of all proportion to the rest, and to the stalls with which it is connected. The organ is composed of three distinct portions, the centre one is very large, and stands over the middle arch of the screen. The two side portions contain- ing the largest pipes, are attached to the walls of the choir on each side, and are of considerable height. Beyond the stalls of the choir on each side between the columns, are monuments to the memory of illustrious persons, which add to the interest of the scene ; but which are not of sufficient merit in themselves to deserve a particular de- scription. Before we quit the choir, we cannot refrain from noticing to the reader a very singular departure from the general uniformity of this portion of the Cathedral. The last compartment westward on each side is exceedingly contracted, the span of the arches in tlu->c two compartments is not above one-third of that of all the others. Many have been the conjectures concerning the motives which induced the architect to adopt this plan. Here were the Norman towers already built which he intended should serve for the transept of his new
110 RXETER CATHEDRAL.
Cathedral, possibly also reverence for the site of the ancient altar, might determine for him the extent of the new choir eastward, he had then to fill up the intervening space with an arcade, till these two fixed points were thus connected, and we can hardly suppose that he would not measure that space accurately before he began to build upon it. Yet some have supposed this, and thus satisfactorily to themselves at least, account for the contraction of these arch spaces. Others thinking it derogatory to the credit of the architect of so splendid a work as this Cathedral, disdainfully reject this mode of accounting for so singular a circumstance, and have supposed it to be the effect not of miscalculation and accident, but of design : the architect, say they, being determined to retain the Norman towers, to make of them a transept, must at the same time havo abandoned all idea of a central tower, or lantern ; and yet desiring as usual to have some feature in the building, by which the choir, the most sacred part of it, might be distinguished from the rest, ho designed and adopted this expedient. Others again have supposed, that this was done with reference entirely to the rood, now the organ loft, the arch spaces being of the same breadth with that, which was erected not long after ; of these suppositions, we will not ven- ture to prefer one before another, nor add to the number of them ; but confessing ourselves entirely at a loss to account for this remark- able feature in the edifice, we will take our leave of the choir, and invite the reader to examine with us the side aisles, their chapels, and the most important of their sepulchral monuments.
The vaulting of the side aisles of the choir is much more simple than that of the choir itself; it has indeed in each compartment but four ribs, at the intersection of which is a sculptured boss of no great richness. On the one side monuments are inserted in the wall under the windows, on the other between the arches. In the last com- partment of the north aisle on the left is the entrance into St. George's chapel, called also the chantry of Sir John Spcke, knight, who is buried in it ; the screen which divides it from the aisle is a late perpendicular work and feathered, is rich in panelling, shields, rosettes, and small statues. The east end of this aisle is separated from the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, by a beautiful stone screen of open work, a little earlier than that just described. This chapel, together with the one opposite, form a sort of transept to the Lady
.
EXETER
IISBOP r
WLETER CATHEDRAL. Ill
Chapel, which might be entered here under an arch, beneath which is the sepulchral monument of Edmund Stafford, bishop of Exeter, who died in 1395. The Lady Chapel, which for one hundred and sixty yean was the library of the dean and chapter, was refitted and restored in the year 1822 ; it is entered from the aisle behind the altar screen, and displays much excellent detail of the style which prevailed towards the end of the fourteenth and beginning of tho fifteenth century. The vaulting is similar to that of the nave and choir. The monument of Bishop Branscombc is exactly opposite to that of Bishop Stafford, and is placed under the corresponding arch on the south side of the chapel, serving in part as a dividing screen from the chapel of St. Gabriel, as Bishop Stafford's does on the other side from the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen. These small chapels on either side the Lady Chapel are beautifully vaulted with stone, and lighted by two pointed windows in each, of large dimensions and graceful tracery. Bishop Branscombc *s monument is a most superb example of the monumental architecture of the thirteenth century : and is still in most excellent preservation. The tomb on which the effigy of the bishop in his pontifical robes is recumbent, is adorned on both sides with five large quatrefoils richly feathered, each enclosing a shield, between each quatrcfoil is an oblong panel, containing a niche with feathered canopy, the arch of the monument above the altar tomb is pointed ; but of that peculiar form which was just then in use, but which prevailed for a very short period. The principal arch moulding is thickly set with that beautiful simple four-leaved flower, peculiar also to this style, and the arch itself is trebly fea- thered: the spandriUare filled with good feathered panel ling, the hol- low cornice above with small figures of angels, playing on musical instruments, and the parapet above this is enriched with a border of quatrefoils alternately wide and narrow, according to the panels in which they are inserted. Small niches with feathered canopies, de- corate a hollow moulding which reaches from the top of the table to the cornice above the arch, in each side of it, but the small statues are gone. Passing by the chapel of St. Gabriel, we come next to the chapel of St. Saviour, or the chantry and chapel of Bishop Oldham, as it is also called, because that prelate is interred in it. The screen which divides this chapel from the south aisle of the choir, is a beautiful example of lat perpendicular work, and not
TER CATHEDRAL.
very much unlike that in the same situation, and of the same period, on the other side of the choir, which has been already described.
The chapels of St. Andrew and St. James, which it has been thought once formed the transept of the previous Cathedral, are both as to their windows and vaulting, of the same style as the north and south aisles of the choir, from which they are respectively en- tered. Both these chapels are of larger dimensions than any others about the Cathedral, except the Lady Chapel, and are now both used as vestries.
Before we quit the Cathedral, we must beg leave to conduct the reader back again into the choir, in order to point out to his notice three stone seats or stalls, side by side near the altar, and to the south of it. The beauty and delicacy of the carving cannot be exceeded. The arches are of a peculiar form, and adorned with the simplest feathering, the canopies are straight and richly feathered, aud termi- nated with equally rich finials. But the canopy of the seat nearest the altar deserves particular attention ; instead of the ordinary feathering and finial, it is adorned with a wreath of vine leaves on each side which meet at the point and there form a finial, and never did a Greek sculptor of the best age, trace a more exact portrait of the leaf of the vine, nor design a more graceful wreath of such leaves, nor execute his design, with a more masterly finish. Stone seats, sometimes two together, sometimes three are frequently met with in Cathedral, abbey, collegiate, and even in the larger parish churches. They are always near the altar and on the south side of the choir, and are supposed to have been constructed for the use of the priests, who celebrated and assisted in the celebration of the mass. One more observation on the choir and we have done. The reader ought to be informed that the altar screen which was put up soon after the Reformation, was a work in the worst style of that age of debased architecture. In the year 1818 this heavy and incongruous heap of ugliness was happily removed, and the present screen erected by Mr. John Kendall, architect, of this city : which does him very great credit. It is of stone, and is composed of seven divisions separated by buttresses supporting highly enriched canopies and pinnacles. Beneath the magnificent canopy of the central divi- sion is placed the communion table and the commandments. Over 0»c top of the screen between the pinnacles of it an interesting
XZXTB&
THE CHAPTER ROOM
HKrKittjH-t: rn n.j.%
o-« * 4-
+ » * t —
bjr R
lutr? L
'.-*« ^ ,
•
ZXETEK CATHEDRAL. 11)
glimpse is caught of the eastern aisle of the choir, and chapel* beyond it.
Leaving now the choir by the organ screen, we will observe by the way that its walls were panelled and the upper ornaments of the parapet of the gallery above it added in the year 1819. And now leaving the Cathedral by the middle portal in the west front, we may inform the reader that the basement of it was well restored between the years 1817 and 1819: but in the late gales of the present year (1837), the beautiful open parapet of this screen was destroyed, and has not yet been re-constructed.
Turning round the south-west corner of this facade, we come to the site of the Cathedral cloisters, but these, alas ! arc no longer to be found ; they were destroyed by Cromwell's soldiers, by whose command at the same time, the Cathedral was divided into two parts by a strong partition wall, the one portion being given up to the Presbyterians, the other to the Independents, for places of worship. Walking across what was the cloister yard, we come to the west end of the chapter-house, which is now also used as a library. It is an oblong building, with a low pointed door at the west end, and large pointed window over it, three pointed windows in the length on each side, and a very large one at the east cud, much wider and longer than any of the others, but of the same perpendicular character, the windows have buttresses between them, and the whole building has a plain embattled parapet all round. Besides the low pointed portal in the west front, it has another entrance on the north side from which there is a communication with the south wing of the Cathe- dral transept. Within it is a beautifully proportioned room, with a coved timber roof carved and pierced in open work with a pattern of squares and circles richly feathered.
The internal dimensions of the Cathedral arc as follows ; extreme internal length from west entrance to the entrance of Lady Chapel 320 feet. Length of Lady Chapel 60 feet. Breadth of the body of the church 72 feet. Length of nave from west door to the entrance into the choir 168 feet, and from thence to the new altar screen 127 feet. The breadth of the nave and choir clear of the columns 33 feet 6 inches, and of the aisles 15 feet clear of the same. Length of tran- sept from north to south 138 feet, breadth of the same 28 fcctG inches. Height of the vaulting from the pavement to the highest part of it
VOL. II. Q
Ill EXETER CATHEDRAL.
only 66 feet : which is 20 feet less than it ought to be, at the least, and if it were to be elevated, we would rather add 30 feet to its height than 20. This want of due elevation is very injurious to the effect both of the exterior and the interior of this Cathedral, but as was observed before, it is its chief, if it be not its only defect. From the measurement above stated the reader will perceive tho truth of our assertion in the outset, viz., that Exeter Cathedral cannot be classed with those of the first magnitude, although from the uniformity of its design, the beauty and variety of its architectural detail, its numerous chapels and monuments, it must ever deservedly rank among the most important and imposing Cathedrals of the kingdom. The chapter- house is 50 feet in length and 30 in breadth. The large east window was once filled with painted glass, but it is now only to be admired for its peculiarly elegant form and beautiful proportions.
The Cathedral establishment, besides the bishop, consists of a dean, eight canons residentiary, four archdeacons, viz., of Cornwall, Barnstaplc, Exeter, and Totton, a chancellor, twenty-four preben- daries, four priest vicars, eight lay vicars, organist, singing-men, choristers, vergers, and other inferior officers. The Cathedral Church is dedicated to St. Peter. In the king's books the bishopric of Ex- eter is valued at £500 per annum, and the present bishop returned the value of it at £2713 per annum. The diocese of Exeter, ever since the union of the sees of Crediton and St. Germain's, has been composed of the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and by the late Act, the Scilly Islands also are declared to be within the jurisdic- tion of the Bishop of Exeter, and of the Archdeacon of Cornwall.
Such is the history of the diocese and see of Exeter, and such also the history and description of its present Cathedral Church. We shall now proceed, according to the plan we have hitherto pursued, to give slight biographical sketches of some of its more renowned prelates.
Bishop Bartholomew, consecrated in 1161, deserves first to be mentioned for his having taken the king's part against Thomas t\ Beckct, whose unbounded arrogance, and defiance both of the laws of his country and the royal authority, this good bishop exposed to pope Alexander III. to whom be was sent in company with other bishops, on an embassy concerning that affair. This bishop was also for those times a great divinity writer. Oliver says, " his
KXBTER CATHEDRAL. 115
extraordinary talents and rare felicity of genius, made him be regarded as the luminary of the English Church," and so he was called by the pontiff before named. He wrote on Predestination, Freewill, Penance, and.other subjects ; of which Bishop Tanner has given an account in his Bibliothcca Britanico-IIibernica. Having himself in his early years experienced the advantage of powerful friends, he became, after his own advancement, a patron of talents and worth; and Baldwin, like himself a native of Exeter, who eventually became archbishop of Canterbury, was indebted to him for his education and early promotion. Bishop Bartholomew died on the 15th of December, 1184, and was buried in his own Cathedral. Walter Bronescombe, also a native of Exeter, and like Bartho- lomew, of humble origin, deserves next to be mentioned among the worthies who have filled this see. His parents, assisted by kind friends, were enabled to send him first to school, and afterwards to Oxford, where he soon made himself a proficient in all the learning of his day. His great acquirements obtained him patronage, and he became canon of Exeter and archdeacon of Surrey before he was in priest's orders. On the 24th of February, 1258, he was elected bishop of Exeter, and on the 14th of May following he was solemnly enthroned in this Cathedral. He was a man of uncommon abilities and prudence ; for, during the wars between Henry III. and his barons, he conducted himself so discreetly, as to obtain both the con- fidence of his sovereign and the respect and esteem of the barons. His signature stands the first to the Dictum of Kenilworth, dated the 31st of October, 1266. In the year 1274 this prelate assisted at the fourteenth general council held at Lyons, as appears by his register, Avhich is the most ancient one belonging to this see, and which he began, in consequence, as it is said, of some attempted frauds by official persons during the time of his predecessor. This register proves the great number of churches which Bishop Bronescombe dedicated in Devonshire and Cornwall during his government of this eee. In one year only, viz., in 1268, he consecrated no fewer than forty. At Glasney, in Cornwall, he founded and richly endowed the college of St. Thomas the Martyr for thirteen secular canons. He restored to the church of the Holy Cross, at Crediton, its possessions and endowments ; and was a great benefactor to the hospital of St. John, in Exeter. At Clyst he built a large and commodious palace
116 EXETER CATHEDRAL.
which became a favourite residence of his successors. He died on the 22nd of June, 1580, after governing his diocese with great abi- lity and vigilance for more than twenty-two years, and was buried in St. Gabriel's chapel, which he had recently built for the place of his sepulture, and in which was afterwards raised to his memory the splendid monument we have already attempted to describe.
Another Walter must next be mentioned, viz., Walter de Stapcl- don, professor of canon law, precentor of Exeter, and chaplain to Pope Clement V., a man of high birth and splendid abilities. He was elected in 1307, and enthroned the next year with more than common magnificence, even in that age of ecclesiastical pomp. When he came to the east gate of the city, he alighted from his horse and walked in procession to the Cathedral, the whole way being laid with black cloth. At St. Michael's gate, which was the principal entrance into the Cathedral close, he was received by the chapter and choris- ters in their proper vestments, and Te Dettm being sung, he was conducted into the church, and installed with the accustomed solem- nities; after which he took possession of his palace, and regaled his numerous and high-born guests with a splendid banquet. His great talents for public employments of the highest importance gained him the favour of Edward II., to whose service he attached himself with greater zeal and fidelity than the evil measures of his government deserved. When that weak monarch took refuge in flight he left the government of the metropolis in the hands of Bishop Stapeldon. This charge led to the death of this loyal but ill-fated prelate ; for the populace rising in arms in favour of the queen, after first plun- dering his new residence, without Temple Bar, seized the bishop himself as he was proceeding through the city, and dragging him from his horse into Cheapsidc, proclaimed him a public traitor, a seducer of the king, and a destroyer of the liberties of the city. Then strip- ping him of his armour and other apparel, they cut off his head, and fixed it upon a long pole, as a trophy and a warning. Two of his attendants underwent the same cruel fate, and their bodies were thrown into the river, together with the bishop's, though they were afterwards taken out by order of the victorious queen, and buried in the neighbouring church of St. Clement Danes. The remains of the bishop were, however, finally conveyed to Exeter, and interred on the north side of the choir near the altar, on the 98th of March,
EXETER CATHEDRAL. 117
, about six months after his violent death. He was a great benefactor to the Cathedral, and founded and liberally endowed Hart's Hall and Staplcdon's Inn, now Exeter College, in Oxford; besides leaving funds for establishing a preparatory school for that college in St. John's hospital, in Exeter.
Bishop John Grandisson (after James Bcrcleye, the successor of Stapledon, who enjoyed his promotion only a few weeks) was next elected. He was of an ancient family, descended from the dukes of Burgundy. " He was," says Godwin, "from his childhood very studious, became learned, and wrote divers books. He was also very grave, wise, and politic, and therefore grew into such credit with Pope John XXII., that he was not only of his privy council, but also his nuncio, in matters of great wcightand importance, to the emperor, to the kings of Spain, France, and England, and other the mightiest princes of Christendom." He was chaplain to the pope at the time of bis promotion to this see, in the month of August, 1327, and he was consecrated the 18th of October following, in the Domi- nician church at Avignon, by Peter, cardinal of Prccneste, amidst a splendid assembly of cardinals, bishops and others. Besides what this bishop did for the present Cathedral, which we have already noticed, he founded and endowed the noble college of St. Mary Ottery ; he also greatly augmented the revenues of Bishop Broncs- combe's college, at Glasney, near Penryn, and of St. John's college, in Exeter, the church of which he is also thought to have rebuilt. In his manner of living he was extremely frugal, and, notwithstanding his expensive works, he amassed great wealth. " By his last will," says Godwin, " he gave such large and bounteous legacies to the pope, emperor, king, queen, archbishop, bishops, colleges, churches, and to sundry persons of high estates and callings, that a man would marvel, considering his great and chargeable buildings and works otherwise, how and by what means he could have attained to such a mass of wealth and riches. He was always very frugal, kept no more men or horscsabout him than were necessary, and ever despised the vanities of all outward pomp. But this it was not that enabled him to perform these great works, and yet to leave so much money behind. He procured an order to be taken, that all ecclesiastical persons of his diocese, at the time of their death, should leave and bequeath their goods to him, or to some other in trust towards his
118 EXETER CATHEDRAL.
chargeable buildings, or otherwise to be bestowed in pious uses at his discretion." By his own command his funeral was performed without any pomp or extraordinary solemnity, and he allowed no mourning to any person. He died at the age of seventy-two years, nearly forty-two of which he had held this see, and was buried •within the small chapel of St. Radegund, on the south side of the great western entrance into the Cathedral.
Edmund Stafford, a kinsman of Richard II., was elected bishop in 1394. He had great talents for business, but perverted them to support those tyrannical measures of the king, which led to his deserved expulsion from the throne. In 1396 he was made keeper of the great seal, and he opened the merciless parliament which met in September, 1397, by a speech asserting the unlimited extent of the regal power, and the deserved infliction of the severest punish- ments on those who sought to subject it to any restriction. After the king's deposition, however, he submitted to the sway of Henry IV., and in March, 1401, was again appointed chancellor and keeper of the seal. He was a great benefactor to Stapeldon's Inn, at Oxford, of which he is regarded as the second founder ; he also reformed its statutes, and changed its name to Exeter College, which it still bears. He died, after a short illness, on the 3rd of September, 1419, and was buried in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene.
Richard Fox, a native of Lincolnshire, who was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, was for a short time bishop of this see. While pursuing his studies at Paris, he became acquainted with the Earl of Richmond, who was then an exile, and afterwards greatly assisted him in his attempts against Richard III. In reward for his services, when the earl, on the death of Richard, became king by the name of Henry VII., he conferred many honours upon him ; the see of Exeter first in 1487, and he continued to be one of the most confidential of all his majesty's counsellors. He was trans- lated to Bath and Wells in 1491 ; in 1494 to Durham ; and lastly to Winchester in 1600. He became blind in his latter years, and dying on the 5th of October, 1528, was buried in Winchester Cathe- dra], where a splendid monumental chantry is raised to his memory. He founded a free grammar school at Grantham, and another at Taunton ; and, in conjunction with Bishop Oldham, he founded and most amply endowed the college of Corpus Christi, in Oxford.
BXKTER CATHEDRA I- 119
John Veyscy succeeded Bishop Oldhara, and wat elected in 1519. He was a native of Sutton Coldficld, died at the the advanced age of one hundred and three years, and was buried in the church there. He was much esteemed by Henry VIII., and was appointed governor and tutor to his eldest daughter Mary. In 1551 he was required by Edward VI. to surrender his see, and was rewarded for his ready compliance with a handsome annuity. After the accession of his pupil Queen Mary, he was reinstated in his bishopric, but lived only one year afterwards. On the very day he resigned his see, King Edward VI. bestowed it upon the famous Miles Covcrdalc, who was not allowed a long possession of it. On the accession of Queen Mary he was ejected and sent to prison, but about eighteen months after he was released, at the earnest and repeated solicitations of the king of Denmark, and by an act of council allowed to go to that country with two of his servants and his baggage. On the queen's death he returned to England, but having during his exile imbibed the prin- ciples of the Calvanistic reformers, he refused to be reinstated in his Bee. In his early years he was an Augustine monk, but as he ad- vanced in life and knowledge he became a convert to Protestantism, and was one of the most zealous of all the reformers in translating the Scriptures into English, and printing them. During his im- prisonment he was one of those who, with Ferrar, Bishop of St. David's, Taylor, Philpot, Bradford, Hooper, and other martyrs, drew up and signed a confession of their faith, dated May 8, 1554. He died in his eighty-first year, and was buried in St. Bartholomew's church, near the Royal Exchange. The Earl of Bedford and Duchess of Suffolk, and many other distinguished persons attended his funeral.
That very eminently learned and pious man Joseph Hall was for a short time bishop of this see. He has been already noticed in our account of Norwich Cathedral, of which see he died bishop.
Seth Ward was chosen bishop of this see in 1662; he bad been previously dean, during which time he restored the Cathedral to its ancient form. He caused the partition wall to be pulled down, which had been erected to divide the church into two distinct places of worship, and repaired and beautified the Cathedral at an expense of twenty-five thousand pounds, and put up the present organ, which cost two thousand pounds more. These charges were principally
120 EXETER CATHEDRAL.
defrayed by the fines paid for the renewal of leases of (he church property. In 1667 Bishop Ward was translated to Salisbury, which see he retained till his death in the year 1688-9, at the age of seventy-two.
Sir Jonathan Trelawney, Bart., was translated from Bristol in 1689, and was one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower. He was afterwards translated to Winchester, and died at Chelseaf in 1721, and was buried at Trelawny, his family seat
Offspring Blackall, a native of London, was next appointed to this see, and was consecrated in 1707-8. He was a perfect pattern of a true Christian life, and one of the best preachers of his time. He was the originator of the episcopal charity schools in Exeter, and lived to see them in a flourishing condition. He died in his palace at Exeter, on the 29th of November, 1716, very deeply re- gretted, and was buried in the chapel of St. Gabriel, in the Cathe- dral. His works, chiefly sermons, were collected into two volumes folio, and published by his learned friend Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, and arc said to contain a complete system of Christian morality,
George Lavington was consecrated on the 8th of February, 1747. He was distinguished for his wit and learning, and his ardent zeal for the Protestant succession at a time when a fearful change seemed impending. He published some sermons ; but his principal work is entitled " The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists compared." Warburton, in a letter to Hurd, speaks thus of it : " I think it is well enough composed on the whole (though it be a bad copy of Stillingfleet's famous book of the Fanaticism of the Church of Rome) to do the execution he intended. In pushing the Metho- dists to make them like everything that is bad, he compares their fanaticism to the ancient mysteries ; but as the mysteries if they had ever been good, were not, in the bishop's opinion, bad enough for this purpose, he therefore endeavours to shew against me that they were abominations from the very beginning. As this contra- dicts all antiquity so evidently, I thought it would be ridiculous in me to take any notice of him." After a vigilant exercise of his episcopal duties for nearly sixteen years, Bishop Lavington died in London, September IS, 1762, aged seventv-mne. His last words were Ao£a T$> ©e$» — Glory to God.
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.
OUR notice of the see of Bristol must necessarily be brief; for first its origin rises no higher than the dissolution of the greater religious houses, and in the next place, it no longer exists as an independent see, having been consolidated by a late Act of Parliament with that of Gloucester: thirdly, the Cathedral itself is one of the least importance and humblest pretensions of any in England, and is besides little more than half a Cathedral ; the nave, according to some, having never been built, and according to others, destroyed, and never rebuilt. Lastly, the history of the abbey of .St. Augustin, in Bristol, on the dissolution of which the see was founded, is sin- gularly devoid of interest, both as to its origin, and as to the abbots who have succeeded each other in the government of it.
Robert Fitzharding, mayor of Bristol in the year 1148, according to Leland, Willis, and Tanner, and in the year 1120 according to others, founded on a rising ground in the north-west part of the city a priory of black canons, of which house as well as of the order itself Augustin was the patron saint. This priory was in the latter end of the reign of Henry II. changed into an abbey, which had before its dissolution yearly revenues worth £670 13*. 11<7. according to Dugdale, and £767 15«. 3d. according to Speed. In the year 1542 King Henry VIII. changed the abbey into a Cathedral Church, dedicating it to the Holy and undivided Trinity, and placed therein a bishop, a dean, six secular canons or prebendaries, six minor canons or priest vicars, a deacon, a subdcacon, six lay clerks, six choristers, two grammar school-masters, four almsmen, &c. who were endowed with the site, church, and greatest part of the landa of the old monastery. Richard the first prior was instituted in the year 1148, and died in 1186. William de Bradestone was the first abbot ; when he was elected he was called prior, but became abbot very soon afterwards. His re-election as abbot took place in 1234. He resigned his situation in 1242,and died in 1252. Edmund Knulle or Knowle, was elected abbot in 1306. Willis says during his goveru- VOL. II. E
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.
ment be built the present church from the ground with the vestry, and obtained from the king a confirmation of all the possessions of the monastery, dated 10th Edward II. This abbot died in the year 1382. Walter Newbury was elected in 1428. Willis says, in the administration of this house he met with great troubles. He was unjustly expelled, and kept out of his place for five years, by one Thomas Sutton, who intruded himself into the same, and remained in it during all that time, but was then most justly thrust out of it again for dilapidations and other wastes committed by him, on which account no mention is made of his death in the abbey register. Walter Newbury was restored to his place on the expulsion of Sutton, and is reported to have been a great benefactor to his church, and to have built the manor-house of Almondsbury, which still belongs to the see of Bristol. Abbot Newbury died in the year 1468. John Ncwland was elected in the year 1481. He added to the buildings of the monastery, and wrote a history of it, with an account of the Berkeley family, who were the greatest bene- factors to it. The founder indeed is said to have been the first lord of Berkeley, as well as mayor of Bristol, and notwithstanding his ample endowments, almost every succeeding lord of Berkeley gave something additional to this monastery. Only one abbot sat in parliament, although this was one of the greater abbeys. The whole establishment consisted of an abbot, prior, sub-prior, and about fourteen regular canons. Abbot Newland the historian of it died in 1515. William Burton was elected in 1584. This abbot with eighteen others subscribed the king's supremacy, and died, or at least resigned, three years afterwards. Morgan Williams, the last abbot, surrendered his convent into the king's hands December 9th, 1539, and obtained a pension of £80 per annum, upon which he retired into private life.
Of the original abbey church of St. Angustin nothing now remains, nor of any of the original monastic buildings except the chapter-house and its remarkable vestibule, the lower part of the abbey gate-house at the south-west angle of the green, and some doorways of the bishop's palace. The elder Lady Chapel, as it is called, adjoining the north aisle of the Cathedral is the next portion of it in point of antiquity, and the rest of the edifice is a good deal later, and all nearly of the same date.
URTftTOL CATHEDRAL. 123
The situation of this Cathedral is very good, but being in iteelf a small and low building it makes no appearance at a distance, and if we except the tower, has nothing, on a nearer approach, of that dignity and imposing effect for which so many of our English Cathedrals are justly celebrated. It has one peculiarity which cannot fail to strike every visitor who is at all conversant with the subject of church architecture, and the impression will be anything but favourable to the character of the building and the fame of the architect. It has no clerestory ; we might have said with equal truth, that the side aisles arc of the same height as the body, but this mode of expression might have led the reader into an error, for remembering the usual height of the bodies of Cathedrals, he might have supposed that the side aisles were raised to that un- usual height, and so the clerestory had been concealed. But the side aisles are not higher than those of many other Cathedrals, and therefore the peculiarity is not in them, but in the body of the Cathedral not being carried up as usual above them in elevation, or as we observed before, in the absence of the clerestory. This is externally a very great defect, but it is not visible from the spot where we first place the reader to commence our description of the
EXTERIOR.
Instead of a magnificent and imposing west front, what have we here, but broken walls and arches stopped up ? and instead of a majestic and lengthened nave with its side aisles, which we should take next in the order of description, we come at once upon the transept and central tower. The west walls of the transept have no architectural embellishment. The parapets are plain, the forms of windows now walled up may be traced in the masonry, and also the arches of communication with the intended nave and its side aisles. Within the walled-up space of the west arch of the tower is a window, probably inserted at the time the abbey church was converted into a Cathedral.
It is now generally admitted that there was once a nave and side aisles, but (observes Britton in his history of this Cathedral, page 61), it is not easy to explain when and on what account they were
124 . BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.
demolished, we may presume (he continues) that it was anterior to the Dissolution, and that their re-erection was among the works in progress by abbots Newland, Elliott, and Hunt ; others are of opin- ion that it was after the Dissolution, and before it was determined to erect here a bishop's see, in which interval of time they began to take down the abbey church for the sake of the materials. Two arches of the nave supported on clustered columns are still to be seen, one on each side, incorporated in the large buttresses to the west of the tower.
Passing round the north-west corner of the transept, we come upon a monstrous incongruity, in the shape of a heavy modern Ita- lian door, above which is a large pointed window of five lights with a wheel or rose in the head of it ; this transept is flanked with buttresses rising into square embattled turrets, and the whole is surmounted by a plain embattled parapet. The east wall of this wing of the transept has also one large pointed window of similar character. To this side . of the transept, and to the north side of the choir, is built the elder Lady Chapel, the most ancient part of the Cathedral Church. Close to the front of the transept towards the west end of the chapel is a pointed door, and above it three short windows of one light each, side by side, which seem to have been shortened to make room for the insertion of a door beneath them. In the north side of the chapel are three more sets of these triple windows, which arc of the usual length, and the middle one in every set rising as usual a little above the lateral ones. To the cast is a large pointed window of five lights, and of a much later age. The whole chapel is finished with a pierced parapet of infe- rior merit, and between the windows are buttresses on which are set pinnacles, which are joined to the pinnacles of the parapet by small flying buttresses. The three most western windows of the choir are seen over the roof of the Lady Chapel, they have but- tresses between them : two more windows beyond the chapel brings us to the end of the choir. These windows are all of the same character and size, long and pointed, and divided in the length by a transverse mullion with tracery. Properly speaking they are the windows of the side aisle of the choir, but the choir being lighted by them, and having no other windows for that purpose, except a similar series opposite to them, we have ventured to call them the
BRISTOL CATHPDRAL. 1 .' .
choir windows. Beyond the choir and attached to the east end of it is a building called the new Lady Chapel. It is indeed a conti- nuation of the choir without its side aisles, and in the same style of architecture. It is of the same height and breadth as the choir, and has two windows in the length on each side, with a large one to the east, of many lights, and filled with delicate tracery of the best design. There is a small window of later date above this and just beneath the parapet, which is embattled, and the gable is very obtusely pointed. The east end of this chapel is flanked with enormously heavy and very plain buttresses, and low plain pinnacles are worked in with the parapet at the corners. Pinnacles of the same kind but of less size arc set in the same manner in the para- pet on both sides of the Cathedral, and take off a little from the heavy appearance of the building. The parapet is embattled all round the Cathedral, except the south wing of the transept, where it is perfectly plain. The south side of the Cathedral can only be viewed by entering the garden of the bishop's palace ; as far as the choir and its aisles arc concerned it is similar to the north side al- ready described ; here however is no chapel answering to the elder Lady Chapel ; but in the place of it there is adjoining the south wing of the transept, Newton's monumental chapel, a small plain building nearly square, having a large pointed window to the cast, and another somewhat less to the south, but both adorned with good tracery. Its parapet is plain, and it has a square turret at the south-east angle.
Passing two windows of the Cathedral, we come to another ad- junct of plain solid masonry called the sacristy, with a small window to the south. Adjoining this is another much larger building called the vestry, which has a turret at the south-west corner, in which a staircase is worked ; it is adorned with buttresses, and lighted by four pointed windows, a large one to the south, two somewhat less to the east, and one smaller still to the west. These windows are all of the same age and style with those of the Cathedral.
The only portion of the exterior of this edifice which yet remains to be noticed is the tower, and this is by far its best and most impor- tant feature. The tower is certainly an elegant one. It is excellent both in its design and its proportions. It is square, flanked with buttresses at all the angles, which terminate in pinnacles- It is
1SJ6 BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.
divided into two nearly equal stories, and each story is adorned on every face of the tower with five pointed windows of two lights each, and divided in their length by a transverse mullion. The whole is surmounted with a parapet which is both embattled and enriched with tracery but not of open work. There is a stateliness and dig- nity about this tower which no other portion of the Cathedral will be found to possess. Abbot Newbury began it, and nearly finished it ; the little that remained to be done at his death was completed by his successor abbot Hunt, who was elected in 1463. The same abbot also built the upper part of the south transept on the walls of the Norman church, added the present embattled parapet and pinnacles all round the Cathedral, and roofed the whole anew with timber and lead.
INTERIOR.
We will now enter the Cathedral by the offensive Italian door in the north front of the transept. The visitor is struck first with the stone vaulting, which is good, but not much more than half the usual height above the pavement ; then with the uniform height of the vaulting throughout the whole interior ; and, lastly, with the peculiarity in the plan of the vaulting in the side aisles. The ar- chitect, in order to counteract the pressure of the vaulting of the choir against the side aisles, constructed a series of horizontal bat- tresses, or beams of stone, supported by pointed arches, and sus- taining in part the vaulting of the side aisles, the ribs of which are made to converge till they rest upon the middle point of the stone beams in each compartment of the vaulting. This arrangement gives to these aisles from its intricacy a moorish appearance, and has altogether an interesting and highly picturesque effect. If the whole of the vaulting in the transept, choir, and aisles were raised upon pillars and arches of twice the height of those which now support it, perhaps nothing could surpass the effect which would then be produced. The stalls, erected by abbot Elliot about 1515, arc worthy of a better choir. The east window is filled with stained glass, as are some of the windows in both aisles, the latter is said to be the gift of Nell Gwyn. The bishop's throne was erected by Paul Bush, the first bishop, who was deprived in the beginning of
CATKEBKAX..
AJtTE CHOIR
Haftm W Jl Qnfca*
CHAPTER BOUSE
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL. 127
Queen Mary's reign for being married. The ancient monuments are few, and have no great merit. The mural tablet* are almost as numerous as those in the abbey church at Bath, and disfigure rather than adorn the interior of both churches.
The elder Lady Chapel is small, and remarkably low ; we have no evidence of the precise time when or by whom it was built, but from its richly sculptured and foliated capitals, its detached columns of Purbcck marble, and-its simple vaulting, we may safely pronounce it to be a work of the beginning of the thirteenth century. The vestry is an oblong room of the same style, with choir and aisles, but very low, and is approached by a vestibule of very singular architectural design. The Newton chapel is of the same date, but the vaulting much more elevated. Of the cloisters only two sides now remain ; they are of good perpendicular character, and there- fore we may conclude that they were finished not long before the dissolution of the abbey. The chapter-house adjoins the south front of the transept; it is a most interesting and beautiful specimen of late Norman architecture; its vestibule is of the same date and formed by u double arcade of semicircular arches, supported by clustered columns, and opens into the cloister.
Of the establishment we have already spoken. The diocese was taken out of that of Salisbury, and consisted of the county of Dor- set and a small part of Gloucestershire. This see being now united to Gloucester, and a new diocese formed, we will take an opportu- nity of speaking of the present diocese of these united sees when we lay before our readers the history and description of Gloucester Cathedral. The value of the sec of Bristol as it stands in the king's books is £294 11*. 0$</. per annum. The annual value as returned by the late bishop is £2351.
Several first rate divines and scholars have held the see of Bris- tol, but the most celebrated of them have been translated to other sees. The character and the literary labours of these prelates will be found subjoined to the history of the sees over which they pre- sided at their deaths. It is no small honour however to the see of Bristol to have such names enrolled among its bishops, and must have been no small advantage to the diocese to have been even for a short time under the charge of a Seeker, and a Butler, and, we mav add, a Kaye.
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.
Of the eminent men who have died bishops of Bristol, we will name first, George Smalridge, consecrated April 4, 1714. H> of Christ Church, Oxford, and distinguished himself there by his great proficiency in learning, and was selected to join in the con- troversy with Aldrich and Attcrbury in defence of the Protestant faith against Obadiah Walker. His widow published and dedica- ted to Queen Caroline sixty of his sermons. He died September 27, 1719, and was buried in Christ Church'Cathedral. Secondly, John Conybeare, elected January 14, 1750. He was of Exeter College, Oxford, and so much admired as a preacher before the University, that St. Mary's Church was crowded to excess when- ever he preached. Two of his sermons have been long and justly celebrated, the one " On the Nature, Possibility, and Certainty of Miracles ;" the other, entitled •' The Mysteries of the Christian Religion Credible." He wrote also a " Defence of Revealed Re- ligion," in opposition to Dr. TindaTs work called, " Christianity as old as the Creation," a famous edifice of impiety, the pillars of which (says Warburton) all other writers have left standing, but which Conybeare has overturned. He died July 13, 1755, and was buried in his own Cathedral. Thirdly, Thomas Newton, elected December 8, 1761, was of Trinity College, Cambridge. He re- published Milton's works, and wrote a dissertation on the Prophe- cies. He died in 1782, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. Fourthly, and lastly, should be mentioned Robert Gray, elected in 1827. He was a scholar, divine, and Christian of no ordinary stamp. His merit in these respects introduced him to the notice of Bishop Barrington, who gave him a stall in his Cathedral Church of Durham, which he held in commendam with the see of Bristol till his death. His behaviour during the disgraceful Bristol riots in 1831 proved him to be possessed of the highest Christian graces and virtues : he was calm and firm in the hour of danger, as well as patient and resigned under the injuries he suffered. He died in 1834, and was succeeded by Joseph Allen, D.D., prebendary of Westminster, on whose translation, last year to Ely, the see of Bristol was joined to that of Gloucester, when Dr. Monk conse- quently became the first bishop of the united sees.
/./ f fttKUC H /Vim lyr
r (&MT
I) Jtutu .•• (&MT
E tu~L*+i**r*
r ibOTt
V-VMl <»^V 4
•
<**r*r tft'm
w» »r
OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
THE see of Oxford is another on the new foundation (aa it is called) of Henry VIII., originating in the dissolution of religious houses. Were we to confine ourselves to the history of the see and the description of the present Cathedral, a very few words would suf- fice, the see being comparatively of modern date, the most eminent of the prelates that have filled it having been translated, and the Cathedral itself being by far the smallest and meanest of any in England. The history however both of the religious houses upon whose dissolution the see of Oxford was erected, and of the mag- nificent collegiate establishment with which it is connected, will be highly interesting to our readers. We will therefore trace these to their origin first, and then proceed to give the usual information respecting the diocese and present Cathedral.
The new diocese of Oxford was taken out of Lincoln, and al- though the see was for three or four years fixed at Osency, it does not appear that the bishop took his title from his sec but from his diocese, which till the late act consisted of nothing more than the small county of Oxford.
The origin of the religious establishment at Oseney, according to Tanner, was this. Robert D'Oilly, the second of that name, and nephew to the first, at the desire of his wife Edith, built in the year 1129 upon one of the islets made by the river, not far from the castle of Oxford, a priory of canons of the order of St. Augustin, to the honour of the ever blessed Virgin. To prevail with her husband to undertake this work of piety and charity, she told him (says Bishop Kennett) a story of the miraculous chattering of birds, and a still more miraculous interpretation of it by a friar. Of course the sub- ject of the chattering was the foundation of a religious house in this spot. The friar being the interested person, some perhaps will not altogether acquit him of the charge of roguery in this matter, or at least of having made use of a pious fraud to bring about the foundation of this house, of which indeed he would not hesitate to acknowlege himself guilty, if he were so, at least among his own
VOL. II. «
130 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
fraternity, as it would in those days have been regarded as a meri- torious rather than an immoral proceeding. We will not howover speak positively on this point ; the friar might really believe what he told the Lady Edith. Zeal without knowledge will make us believe anything ; enthusiasm will carry its subjects away no one knows whither. If the friar were zealous and enthusiastic, he would soon persuade himself that the birds were directed by heaven to speak of the foundation of a religious house of his particular order in that spot, and Edith and her husband, being involved in the universal superstition of the age, might with as much ease be per- suaded that the fact was so. Nor need we be surprised at this, nor boast much about the superiority of our own times, when we remember that there are still followers of the self-deluded Johanna Southcote to be found among us ; and of a more lamentable, be- cause a more specious delusion, originating in the late Mr. Irving; than whom there could not be a more respectable character, and as long as he retained his senses, a more powerful preacher. His delusion indeed has some analogy to this of the friar ; the latter listened to the chirping of birds, and thought they were directed to chirp as they did by heaven itself, and that heaven had also given him the interpretation of it ; Mr. Irving and his followers think that in the gabbling of some of their brethren, they hear the outpourings of the Spirit, and that others of their society are gifted to interpret that gabbling. We speak in the utmost charity of this new sect, whose lives show that they have not confounded right and wrong, and who notwithstanding their pitiable delusion on one point, are yet followers in the main of everything that is good. We heartily wish them a right judgment in all things, but we could not overlook so strong a proof as this, that the mind of man is always the same, prone to superstition and liable to delusion, not only in a dark, but also in an enlightened age. It is not however within the province of mere human wisdom to detect delusions of this kind, nor to dis- tinguish accurately and safely between superstitions and true reli- gion. An age famous for the march of intellect, as it is called, may notwithstanding be an irreligious age, and if it be guided only by the light of human learning, though it may avoid superstition, it will be very likely to fall into the opposite extreme of infidelity, an extreme much more dangerous and much more disgraceful too in a Christian country, than any superstition that has arisen in modern
OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
times, or than that which gave rise to the foundation of the priory of Oseney. This priory we arc informed by Tanner, in some short time after its foundation became an abbey, and had at the time of its dissolution, yearly revenues to the amount of £654 10«. fcf. according to Dugdale, and £755 ISs. 6d. according to Speed. Among the abbots of this house we find none of note. Robert King, the last of them, was appointed the first bishop of Oxford. In Dugdale we read that one Thomas Manne, of Oxford, accused of the heresy (as it was called) of Wickliffe, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the abbey of Oseney. At this time there are no intelligible traces of the buildings of this once rich and flourishing abbey ; a print of the tower and some adjoining parts of the structure, published in the second volume of the Monasticon, has been re-engraved in Skelton's Oxonia Antiqua Restaurata. Judging from that print, in which however the detail is but poorly made out, those portions of the abbey buildings were of Norman architecture, but of no very great magnificence. The common seal of the abbey is appendent to the acknowledgment of the king's supremacy in 1534, which document is still preserved in the chap- ter-house at Westminster ; the impression is in green wax, the subject, the Virgin and Child. This abbey was changed into a Cathedral Church, dedicated to Christ and the blessed Virgin, wherein were settled a dean and six prebendaries, who were to form the chapter of the bishop of Oxford, whose palace was to be at Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College. This state of things however did not continue quite four years. In the year 1546 the see was removed from Oseney to the priory of St. Frideswide, in Oxford, of the origin of which religious house we must now give the reader some account, as well as of the circumstances which led to its being changed into a bishop's see.
About the year 730, according to Tanner, Didanus, a petty king in these parts, is said to have founded a nunnery here to the honour of the Virgin Mary and all Saints, which consisted of twelve reli- gious virgins of noble birth, under the government of his own daughter Frideswide, who being buried here, and afterwards canon- ized, this monastery was in a little time dedicated to her, and called by her name. But the nuns being dispersed by the Danish wars, this church came into the possession of secular canon?, and wa* burnt to the ground in 1004. It was afterwards rebuilt and better
152 OXFORD CATHF.nnAT..
<
endowed for them by king Ethelred. But a ccrtam king before the Norman conquest is said to have expelled those canons, and to have given this monastery to the monks of Abingdon for some few years, and then to have restored it to the canons. After the con- quest the seculars were again ejected, and an abbot and monks were placed here, and continued in possession for some time. After this the seculars got in once more, and continued here till 1111 according to some, or till 1121 according to others, when Roger, bishop of Salisbury placed in this church a convent of regular canons of the order of St. Augustin, under the superintendence of Guimond, a learned clerk, and chaplain to King Henry I. who thereupon became the first prior. The annual revenues of this religious house, before its suppression, were valued at £224 4«. Sd. according to Speed, but Bishop Tanner says he had seen a valu- ation in MSS. which made it amount to £284 8«. 9rf., viz., in spiritualities £69 17*. lid., and in temporalities £214 10*. IQd. This priory was suppressed before the dissolution of religious houses, by virtue of a bull from Pope Clement VII. dated 3 non. April, 1524,allowcd of and confirmedMay 10, 1525, by Henry VIII. who by letters patent dated July 1, of the same year, granted the site and lands to Cardinal "\Volsey, who thereupon began the foun- dation of a noble college, for a dean, subdean, one hundred canons, viz., sixty of the first and forty of the second order, thirteen chap- lains, professors in divinity, law, physic, and all the liberal arts, and for other persons, to the number of one hundred and eighty-six, and dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Frideswide, and All Saints. Among the priors of St. Frideswide we find none of any note. John Burton was the last ; in his time and in the year 1518, Wood informs us, that the king, the queen, and Cardinal Wolsey came with a splendid retinue to Abingdon, and there lodged in the abbey. The next day cer- tain persons of the university went to congratulate them: but Queen Catherine, being desirous to come to Oxford, was attended in her journey by the cardinal, and being entered within the limits, was received by the students and others with every demonstration of love and joy. After she had received their courtesies, she re- tired to the monastery of St. Frideswide to pay her devotions to the holy relics of that virgin saint, being the chief occasion as it fccms of her journey to Oxford, and after that was done, she
OXFORD CATHEDRAL. 133
vouchsafed, continues "Wood, " to condescend to low as to dine with the Society of Merton College." The same writer informs us also that in the year 1523, Cardinal Wolscy sent John Lon gland, bishop of Lincoln, as his orator to the University of Oxford, announcing his intention of founding a college for two hundred students and seven lecturers : not long after which the bishop came and made preparations for the cardinal's buildings, and caused the canons of St. Fridcswide to leave their habitations ; this idea was however afterwards abandoned for the other before mentioned ; and which began to take effect on the actual suppression of the priory in 1 525. The cardinal obtained leave very soon to enrich his foundation by the suppression of other priories and nunneries, the yearly revenues of which were estimated at nearly £2000. The king's patent, after a preface paying high compliments to the cardinal's adminis- tration, enables him to build his college principally on the site of the priory of St. Frideswide, and the name originally intended, " The College of Secular Priests" was now changed to Cardinal College. The secular clergy in it were to be denominated the dean and canons secular of the cardinal of York. Of these the cardinal himself named the dean and eighteen canons. Dr. John Hygdcu, president of Magdalene College was the dean, and the canons were all taken from other colleges in Oxford, and were also all men of acknowledged reputation in their day. The cardinal afterwards added others deliberately, according as he was able to supply the vacancies by men of talents, whom he determined to seek wherever they could be found. As a nursery for this magnificent college, he founded a school at his native town of Ipswich, the beautiful gate- house of which still remains. But before these vast designs could be perfected, the cardinal fell in the year 1529, not only out of the king's favour, but also into a prtemunire, upon which all his estates real and personal became forfeited, and among his other lands, those appointed for the better endowment of this college, which however continued in being till 1531. On or about the 17th of July, 1532, it was re-established, and augmented with Canterbury college and Peckwater inn, for a dean and twelve canons, under the style of King Henry the Eighth's College in Oxford. This wa« also sur- rendered up again into the king's hand on the 18th of July, 1545. But the see of the bishop of Oxford being the next year removed from Oseney, the priory church of St. Frideswide was made lui
134 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
Cathedral by the name of Christ Church, and King Henry VIIT. refounded the chapter and college, which remains to this day, and consists of a dean, eight canons, 101 students, eight chaplains, eight clerks, eight choristers, and twenty-four almsmen. It ought to be mentioned to the honour of the cardinal's memory, that in his last communication with secretary Cromwell and the king, when all worldly prospects were about to close on him for ever, he pleaded with great earnestness, and for nothing so earnestly as that his majesty would be pleased to suffer his College at Oxford to go on. Such were the circumstances which led to the erection and removal of this see.
We must now speak particularly of the Cathedral Church. It has none of that importance or dignity which most other Cathedrals of England possess, either at a distance or on a nearer approach. It is surrounded with collegiate buildings and gardens, and scarcely any thing of it is visible, except a clumsy spire upon its central tower. Willis ascribes to Guimond ' the first prior, the building of this Cathedra], which he says was finished under his two immediate successors. He died, according to some, in 1130, according to others in 1141. The entrance door to the chapter-house is of the same age, but the chapter-house itself together with the upper story of the tower, and according to some the spire upon it, arc all about a century later, as is also the dean's chapel. The Latin chapel, and the cloisters are another century later still. The vault- ing of the choir and its clerestory windows are the work of the sixteenth century, when the priory church was made the Cathedral of the Bishop of Oxford, whose palace is now at Cuddesden, a few miles from Oxford.
EXTERIOR.
The original west front was destroyed, together with three arches of the nave, to make room for the cardinal's college, the high wall
1 In the time of abbot Robert, or John de Olney, Henry III. in ipitc of the tra- dition which represented it a* dangerous for any king of England to enter this monastery paid bis memorable risit in 1264. At his departure he gave the annual sum of tan marks to be paid at Michaelmas by the sheriff of Oxford and Berks, for the maintenance of four lights to be kept constantly burning day and night before the shrine of Si. FrllMvlfc,
OXFORD CATHEDRAL. \'-,~>
of which comes so close upon the present west front that it is impos- sible to view it, so as to judge of its effects. Anything good in such a situation would be lost, but as it is there is nothing to regret From the area of the cloisters the south side of the nave and its side aisle, the west side of the south wing of the transept, and the central tower with its spire, may be seen at one view. These walls are all plainly embattled. The clerestory windows are round-headed, and of one light each, bespeaking clearly their Norman origin. There is a low building also embattled, placed in front of the side aisle, and apparently of the same age with the cloisters. The lower story of the tower is evidently Norman ; it is quite plain, with cir- cular turrets engaged at the four angles. The ridge of the timber roof once reached the top of this story, but since it has been lowered there is too much of this plain part of the tower exposed to view. The next story has the circular turrets at the angles continued, but with diminished diameters, and adorned with arcades of pointed arches supported on long slender columns. These turrets are termi- nated by cylindrical pinnacles with conical spires. The four sides of the tower have each of them two belfry windows, and are adorned besides with pointed arches resting upon slender columns. Upon the tower, which has no parapet, is set a low dumpy spire, with projecting windows in four of its sides at the base of it. The effect of this tower and spire is as bad as any thing in Gothic architecture can be. The south front of the transept is not visible ; some of the collegiate buildings are attached to it. To view the rest of the exterior of this Cathedral, the private gardens of the different members of the chapter must be entered. From one of them a good view of the east end of the chapter-house and the vestry, together with the south side of the choir, may be obtained. The east end of the chapter-house is flanked with low and slightly projecting but- tresses, between which are five pointed arches, side by side, rising on each side one above another to the centre arch, which rises highest of all. The three middle ones have within them the original windows of one light each, but now divided by transverse masonry into an upper and lower window. The gable has a square-headed window of three lights, divided by a transverse mullion, but is otherwise entirely plain. The east end of the vestry has a very good window of decorated character. Both the proportions and the tracery arc good. The south side of the choir is plain, the parapet
136 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
is not embattled, the walls are original, the windows of the cleres- tory are of the plainest perpendicular character. The east end has a Urge window of the same kind, and is flanked by two square Norman turrets, which do not rise much above the parapet. The north side of the choir, as far as it is visible, is very similar to the south: but the dean's chapel is built against this, has a gable and a half to the east, with the original windows stopped up, and very bad modern ones inserted. The Latin chapel adjoins the dean's, and has a large and very ugly window to the east. The north side displays its original windows, which contain good decorated tracery; the buttresses between the windows are without pinnacles, and the wall has no parapet. To see this, together with the north front of the transept, another private garden must be entered. That north frontis flanked with the original square Norman turrets, upon which have been set cylindrical pinnacles with conical spires, which have a very awkward effect. The large window which fills up the whole space between the turrets is of perpendicular architecture, and the most inferior description. The gable is flat, with a plain parapet. The north side of the nave is too much like the south to need any further notice.
INTERIOR.
There is no west entrance. The exterior having given no pro- mise of much internal magnificence, the visitor experiences no disappointment on entering. The pillars of the nave are alter- nately cylindrical and polygonal, they are of considerable dia- meter, tall, and with capitals, bearing some resemblance to old composite architecture ; the arches are semicircular. The trifo- rium, or something in the place of it, is inserted beneath the arches, and is supported by other circular arches built between the pillars, and resting on brackets in their sides. The windows of the clerestory are some of them pointed and some round, and each one stands between two round arches on short columns These arrangements are, we believe, unique, certainly no other Cathedral Church has them. Beneath the window of the clerestory is a sort of upper triforium. disfigured with a modern balustrade.
fl ,
K X
N >
1J 5 •^
u
S I
© *
f-: M
3T CHOIR
*RIT' (C^kW
;Q>r.
W/i\( W/ > / \
I
/ [1W-— — ^^A •• •
ulE^^flv J
* 4 . . r~T I I
^ , ^ k|
. . « » ^ LJ
-
OXFORD CATHEDRAL. 137
The roof of the tower and transept is of wood panelled in square*, and nearly flat. The side aisles are vaulted in the Norman manner wilh stone. The transept is of the same style of architecture as the nave. The north wing of it has a side aisle to the west, opposite to which are the entrances into the dean's and Latin chapels. The wooden screens which separate the chapels from the transept are heavy, and formed at top so as to make with the nether arches (before mentioned) a complete circle, which has a very unplcasing effect. The organ and screen on which it stands, together with the stalls and fitting up of the choir, are all works of the worst age of architecture, 1630, of course incongruous, and with the exception of the organ itself all very mean. The vaulting of the choir is a good example of the latest Gothic, rich, elaborate, and with long pendants.* The chapter-house is a beautiful room of early pointed architecture, vaulted with stone, nearly square, and adorned with pointed arcades supported on slender columns of Furbcck marble, with beautiful carved capitals, fillets and bases. Of the cloisters only parts of the east and south side remain, the rest was taken down to make room for the cardinal's college ; they are low and narrow, but the stone vaulting is good. The dimensions of this Cathedral are as follows, length from east to west only 152 feet, transept from north to south 101 feet, the height of the nave 41 feet, of the choir only 37 feet. There is a chancellor of the diocese and one arch- deacon, viz., of Oxford, both in the gift of the bishop. The dean and canons are appointed by the crown. The original diocese wa$ all the county of Oxford, which by the late Act has been increased by the county of Buckingham from the diocese of Lincoln, and by Berkshire from the diocese of Salisbury. The bishopric is valued in the king's books at £381 110. 0±d. per annum, and returned by the present bUhop to be £2G48 per annum.
* The anci«nt monuments are neither numerous nor important ; beneath the la*t arch outward on the north aide of the dean's chapel is a rich screen of the latent per- pendicular, built in front of the shrine of St. Frideswidc; beneath the wcrt arch u an altar tomb with niches and statues to the Lady Hontacute; beneath the next in a ctno. pied monument of early pointed architecture, called by some the tomb of prior Guim md, but by others with bettor reason, of prior Philip. Both these last ra.-ntion. d har« recumbent figures upon them. Many modern tablets disfigure the wall* and c .him MS of this Cathedral, but in the north wing of the transept it a monument to Dean Jark-'p, which consists of a pedectal on which a statue of the dean is placed, kitting, and in hi* aen lemic il costume; the likeness is very good, the design and execution rqually excel- lent. But how could it be otherwise ? the whole is the work of Chantry. VOL II. T
138 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
The sec of Oxford has been filled by men of first rate learning and of the most exalted piety and charity, who have been all, with one single exception, translated to other sees: the exception is in the instance of Dr. John Fell, elected in 1675, who died bishop of Oxford in 1686. He was the son of Samuel Fell, dean of Christ Church, and was himself both dean and bishop at the Fame time. His admirable writings have been universally read. He was a divine and moralist of the first class. This good and great man was also a liberal benefactor to his college, which he contributed to complete. His edition of the work entitled "The Whole Duty of Man," has been read with pleasure and advantage by thousands, and the same may be said with equal truth of his edition of other wotks of a moral and religious nature ; and of his own sermons. By these publications, by his preaching and by his example, he laboured incessantly to enlighten and improve all his fellow Christians, and particularly those committed to his charge.
Of the celebrated prelates who were translated afterwards to other sees we must mention first, John Potter, D.D. He was the son of a linendraper at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, where he was born about the year 1674, and in the school of which town he was educated. At the early age of fourteen, however, he was sent to Oxford, and entered at University College. In 1694 he was chosen fellow of Lincoln College, and in the same year went into orders and took pupils. In 1704 he was chosen chaplain to Archbishop Tenison, and consequently removed from Oxford to Lambeth. In 1706 he proceeded to the degree of D.D., and soon after became chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne. In 1708 he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, which preferment brought him back to Oxford ; and led doubtless to his advancement in 1715 to the see of Oxford. The celebrated Duke of Marlboroogh was his patron ; but he owed his promotion more to his own literary and theological labours, and intrinsic merit as a scholar and a Christian, than to any patron whatever.
While bishop of Oxford he was very much noticed by Queen Caroline, then princess of Wales : and upon the accession of George II. preached the coronation sermon, which was afterwards printed by his majesty's express commands, and is inserted among the prelate*! theological works. It was generally believed at this time
OXFORD CATHEDRAL. 139
that the chief direction of ecclesiastical affairs was intended to be committed to his care, but as he saw that this must involve him in the politics of the times, he declined the proposal and returned to his bishopric, until the death of Dr. Wake in January, 1737, when he was appointed to succeed him in the archbishopric of Canterbury. This high office he filled during the space of ten years with great reputation, at the end of which period he fell into a declining stale, and died October 10, 1717, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was buried at Croydon. His most celebrated works are his "Antiquities of Greece,"and his "Church Government." The latter is inserted among his theological works, which consist of sermons, charges, and divinity lectures. He has left behind him the character of a prelate of distinguished piety and learning ; of strict orthodoxy as a member of the established church, as well as a zealous and vigilant guardian of its interests.
Secondly must be mentioned Thomas Seeker, the son of a protestant dissenter, and born at a small village called Sibthorpe, in the vale of Belvoir. His father had a paternal fortune, and fol- lowed no profession. He was educated at several private schools in the country, and made great progress not only in Greek and Latin, but Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. His father designed him for the ministry among the dissenters, but not being able to decide upon certain doctrines, or to what communion he should belong, he resolved to pursue some other profession, which would leave him at liberty to weigh these things more maturely in his thoughts; and therefore about the end of 1716, he studied physic both in London and Paris. He afterwards took a degree in physic at Leyden; but having now made up his mind in favour of the church ot England, he entered himself as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford. His first preferment after his ordination was the rectory of Houghton-le-Spring, to which he was presented by Bishop Talbot in 1724, which enabled him to marry the next year the lady of his choice, Miss Catherine Benson, sister to Bishop Benson. On account of his wife's health he was obliged to leave Houghton, and exchanged it for a stall in Durham Cathedral. In 1732 he was appointed chaplain to the king by the Duke of Grafton, who was induced to distinguish him in this manner at the recommendation of Bishop Sherlock, who having heard him preach at Bath, thought
140 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
his abilities worthy of being brought forward into public notice. His fame now as a divine of the first class was well established, and produced for him in 1735 the bishopric of Bristol; and (on Bishop Potter's translation to Canterbury) his removal to the see of Oxford. Although some obstacles of a political nature stood in the way of his further advancement, his distinguished merit as a scholar, a divine, and a Christian, overcame them ; and on the death of Arch- bibhop Button, he was appointed to succeed him in the see of Canterbury, which he held for more than ten years. Among his numerous and valuable publications should be mentioned, besides his si nnons, his excellent Lectures of the Church Catechism. He died in 1768, in the seventy-fifth year of his age ; he was buried according to his own desire in a covered passage leading from a private door of the palace to the north door of Lambeth church ; and he forbad any monument or epitaph to be placed over him.
Lastly, Robert Lowth, born Nov. 27, 1710, educated at Win- chester, and elected scholar of New College, Oxford : he was the son of William Lowth, a distinguished diviue of the church of England, whose Commentary on the Prophets, originally published in 4to., have since been rcpublished, together with additions, in one volume folio, as a continuation of Bishop Patrick's Commentary on the other parts of the Old Testament. Robert Lowth was first patronized by Bishop Hoadley, who gave him the archdeaconry of Winchester. He was afterwards chaplain to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, and was offered the bishopric of Limerick which he declined. In 1765 he was involved in a controversy with Bishop Warburton. In 1766 he was promoted to the see of St. David's, and about four months after was translated to Oxford. In this see he remained eleven years, and on the death of Dr. Tcrrick was translated to London. When Archbishop Cornwallis died, the see of Canterbury was offered him, but he declined it. Of his works his " Life of William of Wickhara," and his " new translation of Isaiah," are the most esteemed. He died Nov. 8, 1787, and was buried at Fulham.
END OF VOLUME II.
Load * s TboHM Hmrri!4, I'ristrr. 11, S*U.bory SquM*, FWt SlrMt.
NOV241992